


Naught But Bones

by stupidbloodyidiots (orphan_account)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Cheating, E for later chapters, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Human Doctor (Doctor Who), Shamelessness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-10 18:52:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 84,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/stupidbloodyidiots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Amy/Eleven college AU you never knew you wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pool

**Author's Note:**

> I have taken a lot of liberties and I'm going to continue doing so. Hold on to your hats! etc. This could be become a really damn long fic.
> 
> Note that the rating on this fic may become Explicit in future chapters. 
> 
> The title of this piece is taken from Richard II, for no reason except that I couldn't think of a title.
> 
> So it begins.

Amy Pond wakes up with her head in her sock drawer, and groans coming from the other bed in the room.

“Fuck,” Mels is saying. “Fuck, fuck.”

“Don’t talk,” Amy manages, but the volume of her own voice in her ears is too much. Now there’s a pain in her skull, a knot of nausea in her stomach, and the sun streams too violently through the window, burning her irises. _Fuck hangovers_ , she thinks.

They accompany each other silently to the dining hall for Saturday morning brunch, both wearing sweats. Amy’s poking listlessly at her egg white omelet when she gets a text from Rory: _what happened to you last night?_ She replies, _who knows_.

After a little food and coffee, she and Mels are both doing better. So much better, in fact, that Amy asks if she’d like to go to one of the Greek parties or this kickback at an off-campus house later that night.

“Actually, I’ve got a date.” Amy squints at her friend, who’s smirking across the table. That’s—weird.

“A date? You, Miss Commitment?” Mels doesn’t date, as far as Amy can remember. She hooks up. People are usually surprised to find out that Amy does not, in fact, hook up as well.   
“Said the girl with a boyfriend of over a year.”

“Has it really been that long?” Amy’s phone buzzes, another text from Rory: _nice finals coping strategy._ He hadn’t been going out much as of late—at least not like in freshman year, when he relished every opportunity to accompany his girlfriend to social functions. Granted, his eagerness mainly stemmed from his desire to be the person she spent her evening grinding on. She had to grind on _somebody_ , after all; she’s a grinding aficionado. It was Rory’s own talent for grinding that had convinced her he might not actually be the human personification of boringness, an essential step in their progress towards serious-relationship-ness. She’d nicknamed him “magic hips,” and after one particularly heated night of dancing and making out, she agreed to a real date.

Mels was right: it had been over a year since then. In three weeks when finals finished up, they’d be halfway done with college. That thought nearly brought her nausea back in full swing.  

“No wonder you forgot that anniversary.” Mels smirks and Amy pulls a face.

“Who’s your date with, anyway?”

“Ah.” Mels’s smirk gets smirky-er, if that’s even possible.

“Oh, are we really going to play this game?” asks Amy, glaring.

“No, we’re not, because you’ll never get it out of me.”

“Is he in our year?”

“How do you know it’s a he?”

“Good point, doesn’t answer my question.”

“You don’t know him.”

“I know everybody,” Amy shoots back derisively, because their school is small enough that it really does feel that way.

“Not him.”

As much as this frustrates Amy, it does remind her why she and Mels get along so well. Mels is definitely _not_ boring. And _whatever_ , she decides, in regards to her roommate’s clandestine tryst. She’ll find out eventually: secrets don’t last very long around here.

 

\---

 

Rory comes by that night, when Amy is getting ready to go out.

“Who’re you going with if Mels is with somebody?” he asks, cross-legged on her bed. She’s in nothing but her bra and panties, shuffling through her closet’s selection of miniskirts.

She raises an eyebrow. “I was thinking my boyfriend.”

“You mean the one with two hundred pages of Biology notes to memorize? I think he’s busy.”

“No, I mean my _other_ boyfriend.” Rory tries to make his laughter sound forced, so he’ll seem properly insulted, but he quite genuinely finds her hilarious and Amy can tell. She pecks him on the cheek. “I was going to meet up with Laura.”

“You know how long it’s been since we did anything together?” he asks. _Buzzkill_.

“You want me to come sit with you in the library tonight or something?” She pulls a skin-tight black tube skirt—referred to by her and Mels as “the booty skirt”—off the hanger and begins tugging it up from her ankles.

“I mean, that’d be—” Rory must glimpse the look on Amy’s face. “Okay, so you’re not serious. And it’s fine, I’m fine with you going out, I want you to have fun.” He plucks at the stitching in his jeans, deject. Amy has to suppress an eye roll. He adds, “But there are two weekends left in the term after this.”

“So come out with me, idiot.” Still shirtless, she climbs on to the bed and then into his lap. This rather entrances Rory, who runs a hand through her hair like he couldn’t stop if he tried.

“It’s not my fault that you took an easy semester and I’m suffering through pre-med,” he protests.

She grins. “Every semester is an easy semester if you do the bare minimum.”

“You’re so wise,” he gushes sarcastically, but doesn’t hesitate to kiss her. They mack for a while, until she tries to undo his fly and he declares that he really, really needs to get back to the library. Cue a moan of displeasure from Amy. She makes sure to slap his ass while he’s on the way out.

 

\---

 

Amy stumbles out of the house into the backyard, disoriented and exhausted, smelling of spilled beer. Someone had seriously mislead her by calling this party a kickback; there’s a hundred people packed into the darkened front room, and more in the halls, the very foundation of the building shaking with their gyrations. She lost Laura and their friends an hour ago, which had been fine because she could dance with strangers for days, it felt—until sickness started coming on and she had to fight her way off the floor to the bathroom. While she’s doing exceptionally better on an empty stomach, she thinks just then that the air indoors could have suffocated a person.

The clean warm breeze of the almost-summer night hits her the moment she steps outside, and she swells with relief. The yard, a good-sized fenced-in lawn with a few trees, a little patio, and—a swing set, how weird—is empty. Some guy’s passed out on the garden bench, a beer bottle resting on his stomach, but he’s her only company. Amy collapses into a lawn chair.

She’s begun dozing off when a pitchy voice sounds from behind her: “Have you got an apple?”

The suddenness of her swerving to investigate this noise nearly sends the flimsy lawn chair out from under her, but she keeps her balance. There’s a boy there, kind of a sight to behold, maybe the most striking boy she’s ever seen—which isn’t necessarily to say he’s handsome, because she wouldn’t call him that. He’s cartoonish, if anything, his features drawn a little bigger than real life. His hair falls in his face and he handles himself like some noodle, she can already tell, just from the gentle stoop of his posture and the way he’s standing braced for the answer to his question. His clothes—Christ, what on earth—a battered tweed jacket with elbow patches, ridiculously tight pants (is he fucking bow-legged?), and she thinks she spots some suspenders as he moves in front of her, pouting.

“An apple,” he repeats. God, his voice is so s _trange_ , like an incantation. She gapes at him.

“Excuse me? An apple?”

 “Yeah, yeah.” He begins to pace. “I want one.”

 _He’s drunk,_ Amy thinks. _He’s got to be plastered. He must have gone to a theme party_ , _that’s why he’s wearing that._ Perhaps a dress-like-your-favorite-professor kind of thing, though she didn’t know of any professors who’d deign to elbow patches. This wasn’t Oxford, after all.

“There’s some apple rum inside, if you want that.” She feels thirsty, her mouth still a little dry and sticky from the vomit, but she’s got a hunch water will be tough to find here.

Patches is shaking his head. “I don’t like alcohol. Tastes bad, dehydrates you.”

 _So what, he’s high, then? Well, a high, hot stranger_. She’s really hit the jackpot.

Hot. Had she just thought he was hot? _Fuck_.

“I guess it does dehydrate you,” she replies dumbly.

“Of course it does!” She bursts out laughing at his exclamation, and he pouts even more profoundly. “What? What’s funny?”

Amy shields her face, trying to squash her giggles. “God, I don’t know. Who _are_ you?”

He stands there with his hands on his hips, somehow dramatically hurt by the question, like she’s just asked his most treasured secret. “Why, who are you!”

“I’m Amy Pond.”

“I’m _bored_ , Amy Pond.”

Amy grins. “So what do you suggest we do?” She half surprises herself with this inquiry, which is a little sultry, but there’s something about this guy’s pheromones, and she’s not really thinking straight right now. She can just, you know, brush it off on the alcohol. She’s dehydrated!

He peers down at her intently, probably trying to figure out if she’s serious. And then he says, to her one-hundred-percent surprise, “I want to go for a swim.”

“Is that a euphemism?” Amy replies, frowning.

“No. So, coming?”

That one has to be a euphemism, but she’s got a feeling he doesn’t really deal in euphemisms. She sits there with her mouth hanging open for a beat and then composes herself. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know you!”

“Well, you’re never going to get to know me unless you come along, are you, Pond?” She likes that, him calling her Pond. It makes her smack her lips.

“You’re rude.”

“You’re ginger.”

“As if that’s an insult.” She settles back into the chair, arms across her chest, feeling satisfied at the furrow in his brow.

He takes a step toward her, leaning down, which admittedly does a number on her: her heart beats faster against her ribcage. “I’m going to break in to the athletic center,” he whispers, and then grins a grin that she can’t help but mirror. Somehow this strikes her as the best idea in history, breaking into the athletic center for a swim. The kind of thing you’re supposed to do in college. He pulls back and starts striding towards the gate. Amy shuts her eyes.

“Can you get me back in time for tomorrow morning?”

He halts, spins around. His face is in shadow. “Why, what’s tomorrow?”  
Rory: Rory’s tomorrow. “I don’t know. Stuff. Life.” She finds herself standing, walking toward him.   
He keeps smiling, and takes her hand, an ecstatic gesture. His palm feels warm and dry. “All right then. Back in time for stuff.”

As she’s being led out of the yard and down the block—they’re not a half-mile from the athletic center, their campus and the town being all sort of compounded together, as it tends to be in small places—she wonders vaguely if anyone will see them holding hands and think something very bad is about to happen, like bad in the naughty sense. She wonders if they’d be right to think such a thing. Everyone knows about her and Rory.

She thinks, absurdly, that she wouldn’t mind it. Something bad, in the naughty sense. Her stupid ambitious boyfriend has been so busy these past few weeks.

“You really don’t seem like the petty criminal type,” she mutters to him, as they pass under streetlamps, their hands still linked.  
“Well, I’m not, but this is a victimless crime. It’s all in the name of youth and fun and romance, you know.” His voice continues to bowl her over.

“Romance?” she echoes, sounding involuntarily smug.

“Yes, romantic! I feel like we’re in _The Breakfast Club_.”

Amy squints at him, the edge of a smirk on her lips. “Have you ever actually seen _The Breakfast Club_?”

“Well. No. I’m not one for movies, there’s so much—sitting still.” He squeezes her hand more tightly, she notices. “That’s not really my thing.”

“It’s not really mine, either,” she says. She had never really though about why she didn’t finish half the films she started, but Patches had some weird insight into the issue. Even if he was talking about himself, which he was. And then she feels a little embarrassed for experiencing any kinship with him; she’s got to remember that she doesn’t know him, it just—seems that way.

They reach the athletic center’s main entrance, a rotunda of paneled glass, and to her confusion he keeps walking.

Amy pauses in the sidewalk. “Where are you going?”

“Around the back!” He gestures for her to follow. “They leave the loading dock unlocked for early morning deliveries. It’s the best kept secret in the local college sports world.” She snorts at this but follows. The amount of trust she’s instilling in a stranger—oh, better not think about that.

He’s right: the door by the loading dock is very much unlocked.  Hands swinging in the space between them, they creep across the building in half-darkness, first through the warehouse-like environs of the loading bay, and then into the lobby, and finally towards the swimming pool. The entrance is at the top of the bleachers, and it’s here that he lets go of her for the first time, leaving her fingers lonesome. Patches bounds down the steps towards the pool, his coattails splayed out behind him. The water reflects writhing ribbons of light upward, swathing the cavernous room in aquamarine. The shadows created by the constant rippling of the water lick at every surface she can see, and it’s all rather beautiful, in a way she’d never thought this school was capable of being.

The sight dazzles her to the point where she doesn’t see him start taking off his clothes.

She doesn’t say anything, but finds herself descending the stairs toward the floor, watching him.

Patches has apparently been talking the whole time: “—used to have a pool when I was a kid, before we moved, and then once after we moved again. We moved a lot, you know, but I liked the places that had pools the most. You weren’t supposed to go in by yourself, but I always did,” he says proudly, shrugging out of his shirt. He has _fabulous_ shoulders. “Wasn’t big on ‘supposed to’ as a kid. Still am—amn’t? Still aren’t? Still am not!” He drops the shirt on a pile with his jacket and weathered boots. His suspenders hang limply from the waistband of his trousers, which he begins unbuttoning in earnest. “Do you ever just ponder _grammar_? I do, all the time.  Switch two words around and a phrase is completely meaningless! It’s all so delicate, you know, like you’re—you’re a glass blower.” Amy watches his trousers drop to his ankles, and he hops out of them, so he’s just standing there in his underpants. They’re covered in rocketships. “You’re a glassblower, and if you make one tiny little mistake, the whole vase is ruined! That’s language.” He has smooth skin except for a few choice moles, and an elegant smoothness to his muscles, for he’s not skinny and he’s not toned, he’s just—formed. Perfectly. Like someone plucked the mold of a man from her head and poured it full of pasty boy.

She lunges for him, intending to hang her arms around his neck and stick her tongue down his throat, but he chooses that moment to throw himself headfirst into the water. Standing bereft on the lip of the pool, Amy nearly whimpers.

“Are you coming?’ he calls when he’s surfaced. Another not-euphemism. His shorts drift up his thighs dangerously, but the wavering of the water jumbles her view.

“Oh, I’ve got to take everything off now, too?” She glares, but not really because the idea of getting mostly naked offends her. “Surprised you haven’t asked me to go skinny.”

“I would never ask that.” How does he manage to sound so innocent when they’re stripping and swimming together, when everything is so goddamn perfect for this kind of moment, except the world that’s on the other side of the thick concrete walls?

Amy takes a deep breath and pulls her shirt over her head, but he’s not even watching her—he’s doing the dead man’s float, which leaves _his goddamn crotch_ right there out above the water, and she can sort of—oh, no, no no. She turns away from him abruptly, remembering herself, but she still pushes her skirt down and tugs off her cowboy boots. This is flirtatious, she thinks, but it doesn’t have to be wrong.

Now, in bra and panties, she glances around quickly for the diving board. It’s at a separate end of the pool, away from the lane markers and starting blocks, and she pads over. Amy picks the lower of the two heights, because she’s not insane, and clamors up the ladder to stand above everything. Patches is finally watching her, she notices.

She dives cleanly, she thinks, but it’s such a brief instance of movement she can’t be sure. When she comes up, he’s leaning on the floating lane marker at the edge of the diving section, his big chin propped on his arms.

“Ogling, are we?” she asks, swimming to him. Thank god her bra is a thick one, though her panties must be nearly see-through.  But, again, weirdly, he’s looking at her face with this curious expression, and then at her hair, fanned out in the water around her.

“I don’t ogle,” he mutters, ogling her shamelessly.

“I don’t ogle, too.” Amy bites her lip, deciding to test the limits of coyness. “I’m not ogling right now.” His eyes narrow but he doesn’t seem to understand her. Humming, she swims away from him, hoisting herself up to sit on the pool’s edge. She pats the spot next to her and he obliges, stroking towards her. She makes a distinct effort to keep her eyes above the waist while he’s pulling himself out of the water.

He sits there for a moment, looking out across the water, and then says stiffly, “Beautiful dive.” The hitch in his voice when he says _beautiful_ overwhelms her.

“Thanks,” is all she can manage. He seems to be searching for words, which must mean something, because they’ve yet to have an awkward pause in the conversation. She has a feeling like they could talk forever, about everything and nothing, if given the opportunity.

A little bit of liquid gathers on the end of his nose and falls. His hair is dripping likewise. For some reason, this makes her want to kiss him even more.

So she does. He’s half-clammy and a little slippery from the pool but she slips her arms around his neck anyway, pulling his mouth toward her, letting them crash together. She doesn’t hesitate to slide her tongue wherever it will go in his mouth, and then she nips at his lower lip for good effect. She feels his hand struggling through her wet hair and he squeezes her arm desperately, which is her cue to keep going, until it isn’t. Her fingers have just found their way under the elastic of his underwear when he grabs her hand and forces her to leave the premises, having gotten a hold of absolutely nothing. And suddenly, bizarrely, she’s being pushed away and held at arms length and he’s spluttering her name in a way that’s more horror than ecstasy.  

“What—what’re you—” He scrambles to his feet and away from her, and she stands to chase him.

“What’re _you_ doing, Patches? You were all-freaking-for-it just a minute ago!”

“I don’t _do_ that, Amy.” The look in his eyes recalls fear, but something tells Amy it’s a fear bigger than virginity, which is what she would have assumed. “I’m not—you, and me, and _this_ —this can never work.”

“You’re very sweet, but it’s a Saturday night, right before finals, so I didn’t have anything quite so permanent in mind.” She spreads her arms out wide, full of nonchalance. “Let’s relieve our stress together.”

“A Saturday night before finals,” he echoes, and she realizes that he’s realized something, though she’s miles behind on what the something could be. “I’ve got to go.” And he runs to his clothing, trying to reassemble his elaborate wardrobe in haste.

“What, are you going to turn into a pumpkin or something?” Amy’s got an odd sensation in the pit of her stomach, which she thinks might be rejection. It’s a new sort of experience. She hugs herself, overexposed.

“No, no, no,” Patches mutters. He goes about his business as if he’s forgotten her entirely, which enrages her.

“Where are you off to, raggedy boy?” she demands. He’s dashing up the stairs with his shirt untucked, clinging to his damp frame, and his suspenders flapping uselessly at his sides.

“I _am_ sorry, Amy Pond,” he calls back to her. “I’ll be back. Give me five minutes.”

She waits there until her hair is bone dry, and tries not to let it hurt too much.

Only after she’s gotten dressed and started to leave does it occur to her she never found out his name. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many burning questions!! Who was the date?!?! Is Patches a virgin?!? Are they all supposed to be American?!?! Will I name Eleven "John Smith"?!?! (I won't)
> 
> Find out next time on America's Next Top College AU.


	2. Patches

Eight months later, toward the end of January, Rory visits Amy and her aunt before flying to Rome to begin his semester abroad.

At the end of their week together she drives him to the airport, joking all the way. She jokes into the parking garage, while he’s getting checked in, up to the entrance to the security line, where it’s time to say goodbye. He fiddles with the strap of his bag incessantly and she takes his hands in hers, because she doesn’t really do the whole verbal comforting dance.

“Of course you’re leaving the semester when I finally take my lab science,” she says. “Can’t even make you do my homework.”

“That’s what the internet is for,” Rory reminds her. Sounding a little desperate, he adds, “and you can use it all the time, to ask me anything. For email or Skype or whatever.”

“Because I’m really going to want to hear all your fantastic study abroad stories while I’m stuck in the boonies.” Still joking.

“Because I’ll miss you,” he says seriously, intently, leaning in to her.

Amy has to duck her head.  “Idiot.” When she kisses him (and she does, because what else is she to do?), she can feel him smile against her mouth. A quick goodbye and he slips into line.

She stays a while, grinning when Rory looks over, until he disappears from view and she has to head back to her car, to head back to her house, so she can pack up and head back to her school for a very long semester. 

\---  
  
Amy’s lab science, unfortunately, is physics. It’s all she could get. The course is only a 100-level, but she’s never been strong in science and the professor has an accent. Her history major hasn’t prepared her for this.

And worse, the class requires her to use the stupid physics lab in the gross, creepy basement of the science complex where she never goes. She actually has Laura draw her a map so she won’t get lost.

Of course, she loses said map and spends fifteen minutes wandering down what appears to be the same grubby white corridor over and over. She’s about ready to scream bloody murder when somebody swings around the corner and nearly knocks her to the ground.

“Slow down,” she quite shouts, a little beside herself in light of various accumulated frustrations.

“Sorry, sorry,” pants the—the guy—and she knows that voice, and she takes a real look at him.

No. _No_. It’s impossible.

Eight months—she’d been positive he was a townie, or maybe even a ghost, but not—he can’t just be here. And in that same _stupid_ jacket.

Patches recognizes her too. In fact, he must be delighted to see her, because the hug he gives her lifts her off the ground. “Amy Pond! My old friend,” he cries, his face buried in her shoulder.

Are they friends? Is that the way she’d put it? More than acquaintances, briefer than old flames, lighter than exes. Sweeter than past hook-ups. She couldn’t name it if she tried, but maybe that makes it acceptably innocent or something.

“Hello,” she manages, a little breathless from the embrace. He sets her down and the grin on his face is ridiculous beyond description.

“How are you, Amy?”

“I’m all right—a little surprised, right now. You?”

His face falls, reminded of some calamity. “I’m trying to work out a very difficult problem. Which is why, the running—I like to run around the physics basement. Helps me think.”

“Does it?”

“Yes, I very much recommend it.”

“Excellent.” He’s stopped staring at her and is glancing anxiously down the hall, like he’s already bored with her company. This is both infuriating and embarrassing to her. Amy purses her lips. “Are you a physics major, or something?”

“Yes,” he chirps, nodding too much, his hair flopping with the movement.

“Interesting. You know, I actually know very little about you, old friend.” There’s an edge to her voice that gets his attention. He doesn’t like confrontation, she senses, which makes this all the sweeter for her. “I wonder why that could be. Why don’t you propose a hypothesis on that one?”

Patches sets about picking a bit of imaginary lint off his tweed. “Well.”

She grabs his arm, and his head snaps up. He stares at her with just the right amount of fear. She must be glowing, this is so satisfying. _Eight months._ “Why did you say five minutes?”

When he opens his mouth, the noise that comes out reminds her of a cat at odds with a hairball. He manages, after a little more guttural flailing: “I remembered—I remembered I had an engagement, and I thought it would only take a minute to explain that I was busy, and then it didn’t.” He sounds sorry, at least. That’s harder to feign than people think. The sight of him running up the stairs, away from her, comes back to Amy. Everything in that room had been bathed in blue and semi-precious for it, even the back of his jacket disappearing through the door.

“So where have you been?” she demands. “I looked for you. I decided you weren’t a student, and I guess I was wrong, but it was hard to tell because I didn’t even know your name.” It’s difficult to sound angry without sounding upset, isn’t it? Amy swallows a sigh and lets go of his arm, which he brings protectively to his chest.

Patches shakes his head. “I’m sure I told you my name.”

“Didn’t.”

“Did, I think.”

“Nope. Never knew it. Still don’t, actually.”

He struggles with this for a beat, and then says, “James. Jamie, if you want. McCrimmon. It doesn’t really matter. I respond to a lot of things.”

“Yeah, Patches,” she remembers outloud.

“Patches?” He glances at his elbow, and she thinks she catches a little thoughtless smile on his face.

“I called you Patches that night. You didn’t even notice.” Since then she’d recalled their adventure enough times (often in painstaking detail) that she could remember every word they’d said, or at least give a good guess.

“Ha. I guess I didn’t.” He tilts his head side-to-side a couple of times, weighing her observation. “I think it suits me. You should call me that.”

Instead of James. Or Jamie. These names make her think of oversized navy sweaters, the kind ideal for bad weather; she doesn’t know where the connection comes from. Patches makes her think of nobody but him. “I should,” she agrees. “Maybe,” she adds, remembering her anger.

“Good, Pond.” And there’s that. So, Patches and Pond. Amy bites her lip so as not to laugh and give him the impression that she’s anything less than thoroughly pissed off.

She quickly shifts back to her questions: “So where’ve you been?”

“Well, I was studying in England last semester.” Oh, good, another boy who’s gotten to live out her fantasy of world travel. Just what she needs. As whenever the topic of study abroad arises, Amy curses Aunt Sharon and their bank accounts.

“And what about during the last two weeks of sophomore year? Of my sophomore year, I mean—what year are you even in?”

“I’m in yours,” he replies brightly. “We’re juniors now. Isn’t that strange?”

“Yeah, crazy. What about all of sophomore year, and freshman year?” Amy finds herself stepping toward him, so incensed is she by the mystery of this boy. Sweeping into and out of her life like some pasty miracle. “How come I’ve never seen you? You’re not exactly forgettable.”

Patches eyes her, probably to trying to calculate whether or not she’s just complimented him. “I transferred here. At the beginning of last spring.”

“From where?”

“A big school.”

“Which big school?”

“State.”

“Why’d you transfer?”

“Wanted to.”

“Why’d you want to?”

“Reasons.”

“Reasons?”

“Yeah, reasons.”

“Hmph,” says Amy. To her dismay, she’s smiling a little, and he’s smiling back.

He seems to pluck himself up now, like he’s looking for something about which to be his incessantly cheerful self. “I spent most of my time in the lab my first semester here, actually, so I didn’t get out much. That party we met at, that was my first party. Don’t love those kinds of parties, the dancing is all so—” He makes an odd gesture, sort of rubbing a hand along his torso, and she supposes he means to indicate “sexual” or some such adjective. She laughs, regardless. “What?” he asks, when he sees her giggling. “I like talking to people, you can’t do that there, and if I’m going to dance I want to _dance_ , not—simulate, you know, that stuff.”

She comes back to herself after a few deep breaths. “You’re just full of wisdom, aren’t you?”

“I’d like to think so.” As with everything he says, he talks too loudly, and overzealously, and she loves it. She’s never met anyone so unafraid to be earnest.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you a lot, then. I’ve got Physics this semester.”

“Really! Which?”

“120, with Fuller.”

“Ah, Herr Fuller,” says Patches, in a perfect impression of the professor’s accent. Amy audibly snorts, which makes them both laugh even harder.

They go on with the usual chitchat about courses, until she mentions the class she’s in on medieval France.

Patches jumps a little, and she realizes he’s a bit of a close talker. “I was looking at that course. I’ve got a history requirement left to fill. Do you like it?”

“Yeah, I do. It’s interesting. The teacher’s good. Lectures don’t put me to sleep.” She’s done mostly ancient history courses in the major, but her advisor had pushed her to try her critical skills elsewhere, and castles and knights were certainly qualified.

Patches gives her, for the first time, a look she can’t quite read. “Then maybe I’ll look at it again.” At least he’s smiling, sort of. Her and him in a classroom, seeing each other on a regular basis: is this idea disastrous or wonderful? She decides to omit the question for now.

“Cool.” A thought strikes her. “Hey, want to show me where the physics lab is?”

He does. The lab is empty aside from the two of them. She sits on the opposite side of the room because they’ve both got to use the equipment and _besides_ , she tells him, _you’ll distract me_.

Not that the distance keeps him from distracting her. She finds herself glancing over every couple of minutes, risking the embarrassment of eye contact for the delight of seeing his nose twitch as he combats a difficult set of numbers. She gets far too little work done. He can’t be doing much better: often when she turns to look at him, he’s scrambling to disguise his own staring. His own _ogling_. At least the fascination is mutual.

After he knocks all his notes and textbook off the table in one of these awkward, overly speedy cover-ups, she folds and declares she’s heading out.

“Where to?” Patches asks, somehow excited by this.

“Maybe to get some food, or something. It’s about dinner time.”

“Ah.” Still smiling, he looks down at the recovered papers in hands. Amy waits a couple of seconds for him to speak, but nothing happens. It occurs to her that he’s _waiting_. She asks, tentative, “Do you want to come?”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” he replies loudly, and with an air of obvious artificiality, like he’s rehearsed this. It makes her chuckle, even though it really shouldn’t, because it’s stupid.  And he’s stupid. And it’s—endearing. Somehow.

“No, please.” She mimics his dramatics, pouting so hard her lips hurt. “I can’t do it without you.”

He sticks his tongue out at her, but doesn’t seem displeased in the slightest. “I’ve got a little more work to finish up here,” he says.

“All right. Come by my dorm in forty-five minutes, and we’ll go together.” She scribbles her building and room number on the top of his notes. “And don’t be late.”

Patches salutes her and she leaves the lab feeling something peculiar.

\---  
  
He’s late. Twelve minutes late, to be precise.

“Why are you pacing?” asks Mels, glaring at Amy from her bed, where’s she’s working on her laptop.

Amy pauses in the floor of their room. She considers how to put it. “I met this weird kid.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And I asked him to come to dinner, and he said he’d be here almost fifteen minutes ago.”

“ _You_ asked a weird kid to dinner?” inquires Mels, incredulous.

Amy’s hands fly to her hips, defensive. “He seemed lonely!” At least it’s not a lie. Imagine, having to go begging for dinner invites.

“Amy Pond, the altruist.” Mels smirks and Amy flips her off.

There’s a knock at the door, finally, and Amy shouts, “It’s open!”

Patches pokes his head in. “Pond. I’m hungry.” He enters the room like he’s been here a hundred times, bounding up to her with his mouth open, and she senses the beginning of a ramble, until he spots Mels on the bed and stops dead in his tracks.

“Hi, Mels,” he says, his expression suddenly blank.

“Hey there, Jamie,” Mels responds, in a really, truly unfathomable tone, one that’s smug and angry and amused and so very _Mels_ for all its complexity. Amy doesn’t appreciate that very much, not right now.

She looks back and forth between her two friends, who stare at one another for a painful moment until Patches spooks and starts back toward the door.

“Dinner time,” he chimes. The cheer is forced; it doesn’t take Amy’s emotional bull’s-eye to tell.  

“Why don’t you go wait in the hall for me?” says Amy, and Patches is eager enough to make an escape that he obeys wordlessly. Before the door even shuts all the way, Amy throws herself onto Mels’s bed.

“What the hell was that?”

Her roommate is smirking like she always does, but there’s something especially knowing about this smile that scares Amy a little. “Do you remember when I got stood up at the end of sophomore year?” asks Mels.

Amy nods, and then has the shattering realization that this is a leading question.

“ _Jamie_?”  

“Jamie.” Mels rolls the name across on her tongue like she’s tasting it, and she’s not even looking at Amy, which makes it harder than usual to divine her thoughts. Is it strange that the sound of Mels saying his name should make Amy sort of nauseous? Because it does, in a wave of bad feeling, and she nods slowly to demonstrate her comprehension but can’t do much more.

Mels must sense the depth of Amy’s disquiet, because she asks—with unusual gentleness, for Mels: “Does it matter?”

“Nope.” Amy realizes she’s said this too fast, but she can’t take it back, so she might as well get on to dinner with Patches. Who likes Mels. Or, did. “What happened to you two?”

Mels shrugs. “He stood me up, and I told him afterwards that since he was going abroad it wasn’t even worth it.”

“But it was worth it before.” Mels squints at this statement, and Amy thinks maybe she’s been too obvious or something, so she turns away. “What about now? Do you think—”

“I don’t know,” her roommate interrupts coolly. She keeps her eyes trained on the screen of her laptop. 

“Well, stranger things have happened, I guess.” Amy tries, _strains_ , to play nonchalant, but it seems like that plan has already backfired. She and Mels don’t fight over boys, and Amy’s determined to keep it that way. Besides, at least one of them is in some serious relationship, or something. She stifles a groan and launches herself from the bed. “I’m going to go on to dinner.”

“See you.”

Amy exits to the hall. Patches has knocked down one of the decorations, a giant paper cutout of a purple crayon, and is frantically attempting to stick it back up. “Leave it,” Amy commands, and he seems stunned enough by the authoritative urgency in her voice to drop what he’s doing. “Let’s go get some food.”

It’s dark and chilly on the walk across campus, and she wraps her jacket around herself in an effort to preserve a little warmth, but the cold doesn’t affect Patches. He keeps a couple of steps ahead, talking over his shoulder about an exam or some such, a monologue she doesn’t really absorb. She senses there’s nothing wrong with that: their blossoming— _friendship_ —has a natural rhythm, and part of it inevitably involves her tuning out the occasional lecture. She may not know him very well, but she knows he talks _a lot_.

“Hey,” she calls, striding to catch up. “Are you going to ask Mels out again?”

Patches halts and she does too. Two boys walking by sort of snigger at them, and Amy figures he’s has finally started developing the reputation she’d expect someone like him to have. He doesn’t seem to notice the condescension, probably because he’s so busy gaping at her.

“What’s that,” he manages, trying to sound dismissive and really, properly failing.

“She told me.” She peers at him, though the shoddy lampposts don’t do much for her eyesight. “You don’t have to be weird about it. I’m just curious.” At this point, she’s recovered enough to pass her interest off as healthy.

He raises his finger in her direction. “Firstly, Pond, I did not—” A pause for composure; he lowers the finger. “I did not _ask her out_ because I don’t do that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Amy’s sarcastic and finds herself laughing—why does she always laugh like this with him? And more importantly, is the laughter really with him or _at_ him? She doesn’t feel like a bully, but she might be one anyway.

“Did she tell you I did that? Asked her on, you know. A date thing.” He can’t even talk about it like a normal person; Mels must have been having an off day when she’d thought dating this boy would be a good idea.

“She said it was a date,” Amy affirms. She’s almost forgotten how chilly it is—she must be warming up for some reason.

“It was a _sort_ _of_ date,” he explains. “Not my doing, as I remember it.”

“And you stood her up.”

Patches softens at this, and leans back to look at her curiously. “You ought to know, Pond.”

Amy glares at him through the fuzzy lamplight. “What? Why should I know that?”  
“Because I was with you.” _Oh_ , thinks Amy. _Oh, oh._ “That was where I was going when I ran off. I forgot about Mels.”

She tries to think of an appropriately annoyed response but nothing comes to her, maybe because she’s completely fucking astonished by the way everything’s fitting together so accusatorily. She manages a shrug, still glaring.

“I just wanted to be her friend,” Patches laments. He’s looking out at the night, pouting, like some existential maniac.

Amy takes a deep breath. “Now what do you want?”

This question visibly washes over him; his brow lifts just so as he turns to look at her, and the corners of his mouth tug upwards when he starts to speak: “Now I want to be _your_ friend.” 

This is a strange little thing that’s happening, her and him.

After a moment of trying to comprehend, somehow, the look on his face (she fails, it’s all too much), she asks, “Do you only ever have one friend?”  

“It seems that way, sometimes.” He grins. “But there’s nothing wrong with it. All you really need is one excellent friend, I think.”

“You’re so weird,” she marvels. She’s laughing again, at him and the situation and at herself, and why does she _laugh_ so much when he’s around, it’s like a freaking disease!

“Thank you. Now, please—” And he starts down the sidewalk again. “Come along, Pond. I’m starving, I could eat a galaxy.”

 ---

The next morning, she walks into her French history class, and Patches is sitting in the front row.

“Hi,” he says, and she stands there looking at him stupidly for a long few seconds.

Finally: “What are you doing here?”

His face scrunches when he’s confused, she’s noticed. “What do you mean? I told you last night that I’d decided to take the class.”

“Oh.” This is one on a long list of things she hadn’t heard him say over their meal last night, because he (apparently) took off his jacket to consume food, and then he’d rolled up his sleeves, and she’d started remembering the pool. She did feel bad about ignoring him, but it had been a least a little bit his fault for having such an engaging presence to watch, and in all honesty the constant stream of words—whether or not she’d comprehended all of them—had only added to his… je-ne-sais-quoi. The thing that makes her stare at him the way art students must stare at paintings: with loving obsession.

“Just think, Pond, you and me—classmates! The adventure begins.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up on America's Next Top College AU: Smirnoff Ice and wizard staffs. (What will I think of next?) (Stay tuned to find out.)


	3. Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Patches is muttering behind her. “We should be studying for the midterm.” The apartment a story above pulses with music and voices, though it’s only nine o’clock. She takes the stairs two at a time.

“Will you,” and she takes his hand in hers to reassure him or something, but also because he’s seriously dragging his feet, “relax for two seconds about the stupid midterm? We’ve got all day Saturday and Sunday.”

“And four hundred years of history to review!”

“They only have this party once a year.” Amy and Patches reach the landing, awash in moth-flecked light. They start along the balcony walkway toward the din of the festivities.

“You say that about every party,” he whines.

“But this is a _wizard staff_ party.” She can’t suppress her enthusiasm: at last semester’s wizard staff party, she’d woken up fully clothed in the shower with Rory, who conversely wore nothing but his boxers and a string of twinkle lights.

“I don’t even know what that is,” retorts Patches, suddenly planting his feet. Amy swings around to glare at him.

“It’s magic. You’ll like it,” she says, the anger in her tone ill-matched to the positivity of her words.

“What is it with you and parties?” He folds his arms across his chest like some rotten five-year-old. “Always the parties, and the dancing—well, the dancing’s not that bad—but the drinking and,” he whispers, “the _cigarettes_.” Oh, if he’s ever sounded like her aunt! “You’re at it, you’re always at it, and you know I don’t like it but you insist on taking me along for the ride and I’ve got to tell you, Amy, it looks not very fun from the outside—I’d even say it looks rather harmful, and irresponsible, and so, you know.” He tests a smile. “Let’s go bowling instead.”

(For half the term, they’ve been study buddies, and then more—and then regular buddies, to be precise. Because he hadn’t lied about that one-friend business, and she’s barely seen any of her other pals over the past couple of months, which has been—okay, actually. Her and Patches do better than fine on their own; their conflicting lifestyles were the biggest initial rut, but she’s never had as much sober fun as she does bowling with him. Or rock climbing, hiking, at the lazer tag palace, go karting, thrift store shopping, and once bird watching, though the pair’s insistence on looking at one another through the binoculars and then laughing headily about it had scared away most of the wildlife. And sometimes they’d just drive nowhere in his dilapidated blue station wagon, the odometer of which was broken and had been “for years”. The vehicle had been his elder brother’s car, and then his other elder brother’s car, and now it was his, and it made all sorts of funny noises that might’ve scared her, were she neurotic in the slightest.

Generally, however, Patches didn’t put up much of a fight when it came to Amy’s type of fun. During his stint accompanying her to parties he’d even earned the respect of a few classmates who might otherwise have dismissed him as a freak—his propensity for coming up with bizarre would-you-rather prompts made him popular among their drunken comrades, and he was funny, usually without trying. So then it didn’t make sense at all, his attitude right now, like he was, what, scared of something?)

“What’s going on?” she demands.

“Nothing!” Patches appears painfully serene as he struggles to keep the guilty expression off his face.

“Why don’t you want to go to this party? Where’s fun Jamie?”

“I’m fun! I’m fun Jamie. I just—” He bites his lip, and she glowers expectantly. There’s a loud thus as someone exits the apartment behind her, singing drunkenly. Patches is taking his time telling her, so she slams her foot down on his. He doubles over, whimpering, “Pond!”

“What is it?”

“You’re not—”

“What _is_ —”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Rory!” he cries, looking up at her.

Ah. That.

It’s her who’s going to take her time now. Amy glances out over the railing to the rows of cars in the parking lot, his blue one sticking out even in the dark. “What do you know about Rory?” She tries to keep her face inscrutable, maybe unnecessarily, because with his half-formed sense of social cues he misses even her most obvious emotions, let alone the subtle ones.   

Patches splutters, “That he’s your boyfriend, and has been, and he’s abroad right now, but when he’s not abroad, you’re dating. Together. Going on dates. Kissing, I guess—”

“Okay, stop.” It’s not as if there’s anything wrong going on here, she tells herself. She’s misled nobody. She and Patches weren’t even going in—that direction! Why mention a roadblock if it’s not on your street? They’ll drive wherever they want.

“I’m stopped.” He lowers his voice. “It seems like a big thing I missed about you, is all.”

“Who told you?” she asks, continuing to dodge his question.

“Craig Owens. My roommate, he’s—”

“Yeah, I’ve met Craig like twelve times.”

He nods. “Right. Sorry. Forgot. He asked if we were a, you know, thing.” Patches speaks rather animatedly to the concrete beneath their feet, she notices. “And I said, ‘of course not, Craig, Amy’s my friend,’ and he said that made sense because he didn’t remember hearing that you and Rory had broken up.” He’s still nodding, self-affirming, but the confidence must be at least half-feigned because he doesn’t meet her eyes.

Amy sighs heavily, and with a determined air of brushing-it-off, puts her hands on his shoulders. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Now, let’s go to the party.” She smiles wide enough that he’s got to mirror her, and he even looks a bit cheered by her steadfast denial.

“I just didn’t want anyone to think that you were, you know—I didn’t want them to get the wrong impression,” he tells her, as they continue toward the apartment.

“Oh,” says Amy, biting back a laugh. “I really don’t think people get that impression when they see us together.”

“My roommate Craig did.”

“I know Craig,” she reminds him, and she shrugs off his observation, despite its objective truth. She opens the door and they’re up against this wall of sound and humidity, laid like bricks, arresting after the cool spring air.

She turns to Patches. “So, wizard staffs!”

* * *

 

“This requires me to drink beer?”

“Yes. Technically.” Amy tapes her first drink—chugged, for the demonstration—to the bottom of her second. “We could get you some soda, maybe.”

“Do they have Fanta?” Patches is rather absorbed in his surroundings, gawking obviously at the other partygoers from behind the kitchen island. He spies a girl with a glass bottle in her hand, different from the cans of Bud and Keystone floating around. He perks up. “Is she having pink lemonade? I’ll have some pink lemonade.”

Amy glances over. “Oh, no, that’s—” She gets the idea then, the brilliant idea. Best she’s ever had. “That’s not pink lemonade. You said you don’t like the taste of alcohol, right?”

“It’s horrid,” he agrees, still mesmerized by the scene. She starts rummaging through a nearby cooler.

“Try this.”  Amy opens the bottle hastily on the counter’s edge. She doesn’t tell him that they only keep these around for girls who want to get wasted but think beer is icky, or that he’s like to further inflame his reputation by drinking one in public. She _can’t_ tell him these things, after all, because then he might not take the bait. And for reasons she doesn’t entirely understand, she _needs_ him to take the bait.

“What is it?” he says, squinting at the label.

“Smirnoff ice. It’s a vodka cooler. Just try it.”

Patches raises it to his lips, then pauses, to Amy’s frustration. “Will it make me drunk?”

“It could. But it could also just be really delicious,” she counters, in her best saleswoman voice. His eyes narrow, but he takes a sip—and his faces lights up. Oh, god, she’s done a great thing. Amy has to cover her mouth to keep from laughing.

“It’s good!” he cries. “It’s like soda.”

“You like it?”

“I _love_ it.” He’s grinning like an idiot, and he starts to drink—quickly.

“Somebody’s thirsty,” sings Amy.

“But I can’t make a staff out of these,” he realizes, pausing for air. “They’re not cans.” The prospect of not being magical visibly disappoints him, and she thinks his priorities might be a little off, but she’d rather fix the problem than have him unhappy—though his pouting did appeal to her on an aesthetic level.

“I’ll match you drink for drink, and it’ll be our wizard staff. Sound good?”

Patches grins the grin that makes her think she’d go anywhere with him, at anytime, for any reason. One day she’ll murder for this boy and nobody will be surprised, least of all her.  

“Excellent,” he chirps. “We’ll share.”

“Yeah, and you’re one and a half behind.” She fishes in the cooler for his next drink. “Bottom’s up, Ice.”

* * *

 

The two of them sprint across the campus lawn, guided by the moon and the Blue Light emergency system, hysterical and panting madly. It must be two or three o’clock by now—this part of the school is deserted, a veritable ghost town. Amy’s not totally sure how they got here, almost half a mile away from the party, but she’s certain running was involved. She clings to their wizard staff, which has sprouted several feet.

“I think we’ve lost them,” yells Patches. He sits down in the middle of the grassy expanse, and Amy laughs for no reason, collapsing beside him. The academic buildings that make up the heart of campus rise up around them, toward the stars.

“Who were we running from, again?”

“I… don’t remember,” he declares, delighted.

The grass smells freshly cut and a little damp, and it’s cool when it sticks to her cheek.

“Amy,” says Patches, sounding far-off. He reaches out to stroke her hair, but his fingers are clumsy and get tangled, so he settles for picking bits of grass off her face, giggling.

“That’s not my name,” she mumbles.

“No, Pond, I’m fairly certain you’re an Amy. Look like an Amy.” He picks up a strand of ginger and waves it in front of her nose. “Hair like an Amy. Yeah, yeah, you’re my Amy.”

He’s slurring his words a little. It’s cute, she thinks. A lot about him is cute. His silly clothes, his hair, the way he doesn’t talk like anybody their age should. She likes his voice, his walk; it’s all familiar to her on a level that transcends linear time and runs straight through the heart—innate. She thinks she meets him in every version of her life, every galaxy and planet with a star, each alternate Amy and each alternate Patches lying in a field somewhere under each alternate sky. They find each other, every time. She likes that he’s virginal drunk right now with her, and she likes him, enough to tell him her real name, though she’d never admit that’s the reason she does it.

“I’m Amelia. Amelia Pond, that’s the name they gave me.” She rolls on to her back with a groan. “I made my aunt and everyone start calling me Amy when I was thirteen.”

“Why?” he whispers, now lying next to her.

“Because I grew up.”

“Oh,” says Patches, again with the grin—the grin that’s running and not looking back. “You never want to do that.”

“Well, some of us are real people,” she shoots back.

“I’m real, Amelia Pond.” Turning to look at him, she sees he’s watching her unabashedly. His breath rustles the thin strip of grass between them. “I’m real. I like your name.”

Their noses are terribly close together. When did that happen?

“Oh, please don’t start calling me Amelia,” she groans, and she squirms, noisier and less tender than his staring and quiet breaths of adoration.

Patches, maybe sensing that they’re on vastly different pages, flops on to his back and gazes at the stars.  He gushes, “What a beautiful night, Amelia Pond. Do you know any constellations? Do you want me to teach you some? If you should ever want to know anything, Amelia Pond, you may ask me and I’ll tell you or if I don’t know, I’ll find out. I’ll show you anything, Amelia Pond.”

He keeps saying her name, hell. “Are you making fun of me?”

“No, oh, Amelia, no,” he murmurs so earnestly she worries about him for a second, like he might hurt himself being so caught up in her name.

Amy shuts her eyes and considers his offer. “I want to know what Paris smells like. I want to know if the air is different. I wonder about that a lot.”

Without a moment’s thought, “I’ll take you there,”

“To Paris?”

“To Paris. We can leave right now.” He starts getting to his feet.

“Maybe in the morning, raggedy boy.”

“I can do mornings too,” he says, lying back down.

“Okay,” she laughs. So earnest. She props herself up on an elbow and tries to hit him over the head with the wizard staff, but she must lose her balance, because her lips fall against his.

He pulls away, mumbling, “Rory.”

He’s not wrong, but she notes how perfunctory his rejection is, compared to the last time: at least she’s gaining ground.  

“What was even the point of getting you drunk?” Amy cries.

Somehow this is news to Patches. “You were trying to seduce me!”

“No.” This answer doesn’t content him and he shakes her arm intently. “Okay, fine. Maybe a little. Didn’t do much of a job, clearly.”

“Oh, that’s all right, Pond,” he consoles. “It was a truly valiant effort. Couldn’t have done better myself. Well, maybe a little.” She wouldn’t normally chortle, but the alcohol lingers in her system.

Patches gulps audibly, then. It’s because he’s preparing to say something difficult, she suspects, and she’s right. “Were you and Rory already together that night at the pool?” He pauses but Amy isn’t ready to speak, not yet, so she lets him continue. “I wasn’t sure if you went back that far when I found out about you and him, and I tried to ask my roomma—”

“I know Craig.”

“Right, yes.” He pauses. “Well, he just said you’d been together for as long as he could remember. And I haven’t stopped wondering, you see, except that I sort of have because I’m always wondering in the back of my head, like when you’ve got the television on in the background while you’re doing other things, but I can’t shut it off. The television. So I thought I’d ask… you. Ask you. ”

Amy tries to focus her eyes on the brightest star she can see. “We were. We’d already been, for a year. More than a year, I guess.”

“Okay,” says Patches. “Okay.”

“It’s in the past.”

“It is. It’s in the past.”

* * *

 

Her spring break is a trip to Rome to visit Rory; it’s as close as she’ll get to studying abroad and maybe even travelling abroad—it’s her first time out of the country—so she plans on cherishing it.   

He’s fortunate enough to have a single room, so the first thing they do when they arrive back at the dorm is fuck. On top of the comforter, and mostly dressed, because there are days when Amy just doesn’t believe in foreplay or ceremony and because it’s been two and a half months. That’s a long time by anybody’s standards, and a millennium by Amy’s.

“That was better than the dick pics,” she says gleefully afterwards, tugging down her skirt.

Rory sits up, his after-sex flush aggravated by the embarrassing mention. “I thought we agreed never to talk about that.  Like, ever.”

“Oh, relax, you were only doing what your horny girlfriend wanted.”

He sighs. “I can’t decide if I should be flattered or insulted that the first thing you wanted to do when you saw me was have sex.”

“Don’t think too hard about it.” She punctuates her reassurance by patting him on the head.

For the next week, most of their days end and begin this way: with occasionally random and always satisfying sex, at least for her (and who’s she kidding? Rory is _definitely_ satisfied). Amy wastes no opportunity, not to screw her boyfriend, and not see what Rome has to offer, either. She runs around during the day while Rory’s in class, going through every page in the guidebook Patches gave her as a parting gift—it has his enthusiastic annotations scrawled in the margins—and eating more carbs than she’d usually consume over several months. She does the Circus Maximus and the Coliseum for educational purposes, tries on finery in upscale boutiques for pleasure, gawks openly at the hottest of the Italian men she spots. One of them, despite what seems like a complete unfamiliarity with the English language, hands her his number. She even gets Rory to take her to a nightclub.

And suddenly it’s her last day. She wakes up with her head on his chest and feels the weight of leaving on her eyelids. Rome isn’t Paris, but it’s closer than she’s ever been, and it _does_ smell different.

“I don’t want to go,” she murmurs. Rory kisses her, morning breath and all.

“Come on. Let’s get up. No class for me today, it’ll be fun.”

With a groan, she obliges, and an hour later they’re finishing up breakfast to head to the Pantheon, the last absolutely-must-see destination in Amy’s book. Her flight leaves that evening.

It’s spectacular. They stand there for a few minutes just staring up, because it’s so damn spectacular.

“Amy,” she hears him say, and his hand finds hers. This snaps her out of the reverie. “Isn’t this amazing?”

“Yeah,” she says, not quite breathing. “It actually, really is.”

She’s still sort of gazing at their surroundings, but Rory’s eyes are glued to her. “I’m glad you came to see me.”

“I’m glad I did too.” She focuses her attention long enough to give him a smile.

“And I’ve been thinking that—we’ve been together through this whole period of our lives that’s supposed to be all about making mistakes and learning and being completely irresponsible. But I’ve never once questioned spending my time with you.”

Amy wishes very much in that moment that she could say the same, because he’ll know if she lies, so she just glances at the ground instead.

“I know you’ve probably questioned,” he adds, reading her mind. “But you’re still with me. And that’s says it all, I think.”

_Unfaithfully_ , she thinks, and prays he can’t read that one.

“I know we’re young, but we’ve stayed together through this time where we’re not supposed to want to be with anybody long-term. And here we are.”

But it’s all about your definition of infidelity, isn’t it? Her fancy is both unrealistic and unrealized, so does it even count if she’s tried, maybe once or twice—

“I want to ask you something, Amy.”

She could tell Rory. He’d forgive her. She knows he’d forgive her. So, there’s really no point in confessing: everything will go back to normal no matter what.

Her boyfriend gets down on one knee in the middle of the Pantheon. A little red box has appeared in his hand. She doesn’t notice until a lady shrieks and points at them.

“Amy,” says Rory.

_Help_ , thinks Amy. Her eyes widen—in fear, in surprise. In a little bit of both.  

“Will you marry me?”

She can’t believe this is happening. She’s twenty-one years old, and there are about fifty tourists waiting for her to say yes to a marriage proposal. In Rome. In the Pantheon. 

A beat. A long, long beat, and an unnatural amount of silence for such a crowded room. At a loss, she throws her arms up. “Sure!”

The crowd applauds; a few wolf whistles echo off the ancient walls. Rory embraces her so fast it knocks the wind out of her, but she’s not prevented from muttering in his ear: “We need to talk.”

* * *

 

“I can’t believe you’d put me on the spot like that,” Amy says, wrenching open the door to his room.

“I swear to you, that wasn’t the intention.”

“Maybe it was, though!” She throws herself down on his bed. Every time she stops thinking about her facial expression, a little wrinkle crops up between her eyebrows. She’s going to get lines. “Maybe you didn’t even realize that you asked me there to force me into saying yes.”

“You didn’t have to say yes,” Rory replies flatly. He’s cupping the ring box with both hands, looking ridiculous.

“Of course I had to say yes. My boyfriend proposes to me in the middle of one of the most beautiful landmarks in Rome, and I say no? Who does that?”

“You’re doing it now.” Oh, that’s a chilly tone, coming from him. Amy buries her face in the sheets, muffling her voice. She feels like a fucking ostrich.

“I’m not _saying_ no. I’m saying—I’ve never been an adult without you. Without us, being together. How am I supposed to know if I want to be with you forever if I don’t even know what the alternative is like?”

 He cracks a little, his voice wrought. “I’ve been away all semester!” She glances over and he’s still standing in the middle of the room, speaking to the ring box.

“But it’s not the same, you’re still my boyfriend even when you’re not—”

“Do you want to sleep with other people? Is that what this is?” he demands, or perhaps accuses. Depends on whether or not she wants to give him the benefit of the doubt, and she really doesn’t.

She feels a blush on her neck and sits up to protest. “Of course not.”

“It is, isn’t it? You want somebody,” he says slowly, doling out the realization.

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“You said you were fine with long distance, you _told_ me that, Amy.”

I’m fine with it!” She’s relieved that they’re moving away from the topic of infidelity. “I just didn’t think it would involve a proposal.” It strikes her that maybe Patches and her—thoughts—are just the symptom of something bigger. Of some problem. An out, a scapegoat.

He gets stuck for a moment, his eyes darting around the room in restless confusion, hopefully reviewing the situation to bring them some progressive solution. Finally, he says with quiet sobriety, “I never asked if you wanted to get married.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t, but I’ve got no clue, so don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“You know what, Amy?” Rory squares his shoulders and looks down at her with sudden, cold serenity, tucking the ring into his pocket. “Do it.”

“Pardon?” she replies, suspicious.

“Do it. Do him. Whoever you’re thinking about. Go back to school, screw whoever you want. Hell, maybe I’ll even—” But he laughs dryly, choking on the idea of even a passing fling with someone other than Amy, and she realizes how badly she’s fucked up. “At the beginning of senior year, we’ll talk.”

Amy shifts on the bed and presses a nonexistent wrinkle in her shirt. “A trial separation, you’re saying?”

“Yeah.” He raises his palms in non-committal defeat. “Go be an adult without me.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yep.”

“And you’ll really let me—we’ll really get back together in September?”

“We’ll discuss it.”

“Okay.” She tries to smile. “But you better be serious.”

“Deadly,” he jokes. With the way he’s got his arms across his chest, he looks like he’s trying to hug himself.

“And you better not sell back that ring yet,” she attempts to alleviate some tension, or maybe bolster his ego. “It’s beautiful. You’ve got good taste.”

Rory shakes his head, turning his back to her. “Do I?”

* * *

 

Amy gets back to the room before Mels, and immediately crawls into bed. She’s been unable to stop thinking about what Rory said, _screw whoever you want_ , and how now that he’s said it, that’s the last thing she wants. The very idea of being without Rory Williams make her feel like a boat left to drift; she hasn’t got a clue who she’ll be now, free of him, free of _anybody_ ; it doesn’t seem like freedom at all. And if he’d meant to guilt her, he’d succeeded, because on top of her drifting she’s the bad guy. Condemned for her desires and her inability to see around the convoluted demands of his picture-perfect proposal. Condemned for her _humanity_.

And then she’s not guilty anymore; she’s just angry.

Scrambling, she finds her phone in her carry-on and makes a call.

“Pond!” says Patches, breathlessly excited on the other end of the line.

“Hi. Are you back on campus yet?”

“Yes, I got in yesterday, I’m—”

“Can you come over right now?”

“Why? Is something the matter? Are you in trouble?” The immediacy of his concern makes her voice catch in her throat.

“Sort of. Just come, please.”

“Ten minutes,” he promises, and for the first time ever, he’s completely punctual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My inspiration.


	4. Pond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a little cracky smutty moment, so I've changed the rating. It's not porn, but we'll see if you all can like it anyway.

When Amy opens the door, Patches is beaming and pink-cheeked. The sunburn gives him a permanent blush, and the sight of it knots her stomach.

“Don’t remember you saying you were headed anywhere sunny,” she remarks. He wraps her in his tweedy arms and she hugs back, chin on his shoulder.

“When I got home, my brothers and I decided to drive down the coast. Did you know Los Angeles gets more sun than Portland? Well, of course you did. But I forgot. And then I remembered, after I was reminded, because I got very, very burned.” As usual, he goes in semi-narrative, conflicted and then resolved circles of self-talk, striding into the room and flopping back on her bed with his well-loved boots dangling off the end, a king in his castle.

“And how was that?” asks Amy, taking a prim seat in her desk chair.

“Excellent! Warm. Smelly at times. LA is a big city, not like Portland is big city.” His head pops up. “Did you say you had a problem?”

“Just wanted to tell you something.”

“Oh? Is it a secret?” His immediate fervency seems childlike because there’s not a hint of restraint behind it; it’s just an excited pulse, uncensored by maturity. Not unlike it might do for a middle school girl, secret-sharing appeals to Patches.

“Well, you’re the first person I’m telling.” His lips twitch, and she thinks of all the trouble she’s going to get that mouth into. “Me and Rory are taking a break.”

His expression doesn’t change. “You and Rory are taking a break,” he repeats.

Sensing his confusion, Amy edges away from subtlety: “I don’t have a boyfriend anymore.”

“Oh,” he says with a show of realization. She raises an eyebrow and he deflates. “Sorry, still not getting it.”

Amy’s no poet: she’s always been a creature of tangible expression, of arms and legs and tongues doing things less dignified than talking. Better at snogs than sonnets in the whole arena of affection expressing, and whatnot. A flirt, sure, but after a point she’s straight for the money shot. And she always gets what she wants.

So at this venture, rather than trying to entrap Patches in some verbal seduction, she gets up and entraps him quite literally between her thighs, straddling his hips.

Beneath her, he turns bright red, a shade aggravated by the smattering of sunburn and not all that dissimilar to her hair.

“Got it?” she simpers.

“Amy,” he says, the pitch of his voice climbing as he speaks, as though her name had stairs. His hands have nowhere to go that’s not on her body, so he just holds them uselessly in the space between their torsos like the world’s palest, most ineffectual stop signs.

“Yes?” She undoes a button on his shirt.

“Amy,” he says again, helplessly. His eyes have gone wide, with fear as much as anything, she realizes.

Relenting a little, Amy sighs, “Don’t you want to?”

“I wasn’t lying that first time, when I told you it could never work.” He refastens the button she’d gotten free, to her ire. “It’s not a good idea, you and me.”

“And you know what I said?” Her index finger traces the line of his jaw, then down to the supple skin of his neck, which she decides she’ll be marking shortly. “That I had something less permanent in mind.”

“But I don’t want that, to just—and then not see you, I don’t—we’re moving so  _quickly_ , Amy.” This last exclamation is particularly desperate, as she’s slid her hands dangerously low on his torso.

“So you want me to buy you dinner first? I’m not going to go poof the minute you put it in me.” The idea that this might harm their friendship hadn’t occurred to her. Now that he's suggested such an eventuality, she has to properly dismiss it, and in a second she’s devised a million and one reasons why he’s wrong and she’s right and everything will go right back to normal if they fuck, which they will. “We’re adults, stupid.” They are not adults.

“I’m not going to take advantage of my friend.” This statement elicits a throaty laugh from Amy, and he squirms beneath her.

“We’d be taking advantage of each other. There’s a sciencey word for it.”

“Symbiosis,” he offers, eyes glued to her shoulder.

“There we go. It’s sexy when you talk smart to me, you know.” Though this is a rather blatant attempt at victory via flattery, it wins Patches for a second.

“Really?”

“Really. I mean, as long as I don’t actually try listening to what you’re saying.”

“Hmph.”

Her eyes narrow. “Do you  _not_  want to fuck me?” She delivers this question with such incredulity you’d think it was the worst thing in the world, him not wanting to fuck her.

His blush, which had receded, returns full throttle. “Don’t call it that, please.”

“What am I supposed to call it, then?” It occurs to her what a boy like Patches—like Rory, too—is going to want to call sex. “No, don’t tell me.”

He’s already forming the words: “Ma—”

“Nope.”

“—king—”

“Stop it.”

“Love,” he finishes, puzzling up at her. “Why don’t you like to call it that?”

“Because it’s stupid.” Trying to make meaning out of hormones and chemical goings-on. People have sex to feel, and they may say it’s in their hearts, but Amy knows it’s always in their groins, too. And usually the groins take priority. “Besides, we’re not in love, so how is it in any way ‘making love’.” (She affords the phrase sarcastic air quotes.) “If we wrap it right, we shouldn’t be making anything.” That’s not quite on point. “Except each other come, I guess.”

His blush persists. “Amy, I…”

“Are you gay?” she asks sharply.

His lips part, and she sees his eyes flicker upwards, surprisingly; he’s staring at her  _hair_. Somehow this embarrasses her more than any leer at her breasts or legs or ass ever has, but she brushes the feeling away. Now’s not the time to go soft.

“No,” he breathes.

“So why don’t I feel your erection? I’ve been sitting on your lap for a full three minutes.” She reaches between their legs to cup him through his pants, garnering a gasp from Patches. “Oh, hell, I haven’t even been sitting on it.” The appropriate adjustment leaves his crotch pressed warmly against her inner thigh. Eyes clamped shut, he makes a puttering sound, like the little horny engine-that-could.

“You want me,” she determines, her voice singsong, her grin manic.

“We can’t always have what we want, Amy,” he manages. 

“Can’t we?” She bends down to kiss him. Her tongue’s sliding across his bottom lip when she feels something brush the roof of her mouth. He’s kissing her back! Or—her mouth, but, you know. And  _with tongue_. She gasps against him, but the wrapping of his hands around her shoulders pulls them together tightly, fighting her startled instinct. More turned on than she’s ever been by the mutuality of a kiss, she presses into him until he releases her, both of them gasping for air. Their eyes lock, and she understands that this, with him, is going to be a very special kind of fuck.

“Take off your shoes,” she commands, hopping off him. He nods, too overwhelmed for words in this extraordinary instance. He tears at his laces, and she takes this opportunity to deadbolt the door. No chances. On her way back toward him, she slips her shirt off, and drops it lazily on to his head. The gesture slows his work on the shoes, since her mostly bare torso occupies the bulk of his attention. She meets his gape with a smirk and Patches flushes, tossing away the garment.

“You know,” he begins. “I’ve never—”

“I know.”

His brow contracts. “How could—”

“Potentially the single most obvious thing about you,” she informs him.

He sniffs, indignant. “Offensive.”

Amy tilts forward, showcasing her chest to its best advantage. “Less offensive?” He nods. “Good. Now go sit back against the pillows.”

Patches scrambles up the length of the bed obediently. “Are you going to order me around through the whole thing, Pond?” Sitting is clearly a challenge for him, in large part due to the incredible bulge he’s developed, but his discomfort excites her. She likes the cracks in his buoyant exterior; it’s how she sneaks by.

“Well, you’re a virgin, so I might have to.” She settles opposite him on the mattress, legs tucked beneath her. Shirt rumpled and tucked unevenly, lips swollen by her kiss, hair mussed erratically; he looks positively stunning. “Now.”

“Now,” he echoes, grinning that fucking grin. No pun intended.

“I sort of want to suck on it, “ she muses, “but you’d come immediately, and I’m going to need it in me soon.”

He gives her the same void, pleasant look he did when he couldn’t process the news about Rory—Christ, now she’s reminded herself about Rory, forget  _that_ —and then Patches finally seems to digest the issue, though the firmness in his tone catches her off guard: “You won’t be going anywhere near that area with your mouth, Amelia Pond.” Is that the aunt voice?

She moves in, careful to let him feel the warmth of breath on his face. “Are you sure? Because I think I can put my mouth anywhere on your body that I want.” Which for Amy so far comprises everywhere. She presses a kiss to his earlobe, and lingers there to mutter a gem of a one-liner. “Trust me when I say that you might be moaning, but you won’t be complaining.”

This gets a nervous little laugh out of him, but not a surrender. “I’m serious. And it’s my first time and it’s my area, and I don’t want your mouth there.”

“Fine,” she relents, but leans into his neck, starting to plant kisses around the crook of his jaw. “But that better be the only place.” She kisses then sucks and nips, hard enough to leave evidence of her presence, or so she hopes—she wants to look over at him in class tomorrow morning and spot her mark peeking out from beneath his collar, a black-and-blue forget-me-not. Less an a year after he ran away from her and she’s  _got_  him, her stupid impossible runaway boy, whimpering at the touch her lips and teeth, brushing a flurry of kisses along the nape of her neck, and maybe he was right about it not being fucking in the sense she knows it.

He’s gripping her thighs, high enough that he must be able to feel the dampness flowing past her underwear.  _Virgins_ , she thinks spitefully, because if he knew a thing about sex he’d have started fingering her two minutes ago. She scratches a nail down his fly, which prompts him to bury his face in her shoulder and make an incredible little noise. The kind of noise that makes her think she should start recording sex, so she can play the sounds back on bad days as a pick-me-up.

It’s the noise that’s the last straw. “Lesson one,” she declares. She grabs one of his hands and brings it between her legs, with no resistance from him. She pushes her panties aside, guiding his finger inside herself and reveling at the sweet astonishment in his expression. They both gasp, her because it—the sensation, his face, the smell of sex beginning to cloud her nostrils—is phenomenal, and him out of shock and innocence, she supposes. “Curl it,” she chokes out, and he does, and it must be some miracle of beginner’s luck, because he hits the spot exactly. Amy cries out, louder than they can get away with in a dorm, and he silences her with a kiss.

And then there’s this strange noise, and not one of the ones she likes so much. They freeze and part. A rattling. The door.

Followed by a muffled voice: “Amy? Are you back yet?”

“Is that Mels?” whispers Patches. His panic instantaneous, he retracts his hand quicker than she can react.

“Amy,” comes the voice again. “Why is the door dead-bolted?”

“I thought I had at least an hour,” laments Amy, to herself more than anybody. Mels always had some lay over, always got in later than everyone else coming back from breaks. Except, obviously, for the one time Amy would’ve liked the room to herself. Mostly to herself, anyway.

Patches has started hugging her, clingy with fear. Thankfully they’re still dressed, for the most part. She fights her way out of his embrace and clamors off the bed.

“Just a minute! I’ve—” She’s looking at him for any sort of assistance, but he just shakes his head. “My leg is asleep!”

“Mine too!” hollers Patches, and she glares at him as she tugs her shirt on. “She was going to see me anyway,” he argues, and she keeps glaring, even though he makes a good point.

“Is that Jamie?” Mels sounds less than enthusiastic about his presence.

“Hi, Mels!” he shouts at the door.

“Okay,” Amy calls, now that she’s clothed. “Here I—”

“No!” he whispers frantically. The moment she looks back at him, the problem is obvious: though he’s shielding it with his hands, his erection persists.  

“ _Shit_.” And then, a stroke of genius. She grabs her history textbook from the desk and hands it to him. “Might hurt a little. Sorry.”

Judging by his wincing as he gingerly sets the open book across his lap, it does hurt. Maybe more than a little. A jolt of something wracks her, maybe sympathy or pity or actual disquiet at the sight of this boy she—what, cares for?—of this boy who’s so special to her, in pain. She kisses him briefly, and it’s when she pulls away that she notices the other problem.

But there’s nothing she can do about the hickeys. Zilch. “If she asks, you had an allergic reaction to something.”

“Why?” He glances over his person worriedly.

“Your neck.”

Patches touches the skin there, and his eyes glaze over at the memory. “Oh. Is it bad?” She pretends she doesn’t hear the question.

“Is everything okay?” Mels asks, her voice still half-muted by the door.

Amy has begun to feel somewhat sick about this whole situation. “Yes.” She unlocks and flings it open in almost a single gesture. “Hi.”

“Hey.” Mels has a duffel on one shoulder and a backpack on the other. She enters the room slowly, shooting Amy and Patches little cryptic looks before setting down her things. “Why did you two have the door locked?”

Amy shrugs. “You know, just cause,” is the best she can do.

“There’s been a lot of robberies lately,” Jamie offers, with twice as much conviction as necessary.

“Oh, that makes a lot of sense,” says Mels, nodding. Jamie smiles at Amy, as if to say,  _look how good I did!_ , and she wants to smack him. “What are you guys up to?” asks her roommate, though it’s clear from her smile she already knows the answer. Plus, their room stinks of it.

“We were trying to figure out some of the answers from our midterm last week,” he replies. He taps the book in his lap.

“Really? Mind if I take a look?” Mels takes a step toward the bed and Jamie.

Amy throws herself between her friends, physically and figuratively. “You probably need to pee, after all that flying, right? I’ll walk to the bathroom with you.”

“Sure,” Mels agrees, and Amy can see her curiosity surrendering to the persistent denial of the perpetrators. Patches, she notices, slumps with relief. Hopefully he’ll take care of himself while they’re gone, and she’ll get to have the fabulously nasty piece of knowledge that he’s jacked off in her bed. This is an appealing notion, and it'll have to do, since she's wet and getting none tonight.

“G’bye!” he calls, as Amy shuts the door behind them. The girls walk down the hall in silence. They get to the stalls and Amy doesn’t even pull down her skirt; she just sits on the seat with her head in her hands. She has a feeling her pal might not let this one go, and after a painfully long pause, she’s right.

“Amy,” begins Mels, from the other side of the partition. “You and Rory are both my friends.”

“Rory and I are broken-up, so it’s not like that,” she snaps.

“I know. He called me long-distance while I was sitting in the airport to talk about it.” A few seconds of quiet on Mels’s end. At least talking this way, Amy doesn’t have to worry about  _looking_  like a nice person. “I didn’t tell him about Jamie.”

Amy flips off the air above her. “Great, thanks.”

“Doing something with Jamie right now is a bad idea, and you know it is, and you know someone’s going to get hurt,” Mels says, in a way that’s unusually plain for her, but somehow still the typical amount of patronizing.

“Thank you for the advice, Mom.” This is the problem with Mels: she acts like she’s not one of them. Like she knows something she and Rory and Patches don’t, when the reality is that they’re all twenty-one, they’re all drunk, they’re all stupid. Overcome, Amy slams the stall door open. “Are you jealous? Is that why you’re suddenly worried about everyone’s feelings?”

Mels emerges behind her, inscrutable, maybe a little sad. “I’m not jealous.”

“Really? Because I’ve never once seen you hesitate about sex.” Amy glares at her own reflection in the bathroom mirror; it’s better than looking her friend in the eye. “And it’s completely hypocritical of you to judge me for not waiting.”

“I’m not judging you.” She glances at the floor, her jaw tense. “I’m not jealous because I don’t need Jamie. I don’t need him to like me, or want me, or even to care one little bit about me.” Her voice is curdling, unrepentant. “And I wouldn’t need Rory either.” Amy’s head snaps up, a fearful rage building under her skin.

“ _I_  want  _him_. It’s not about how he feels, I really don’t care about that.”

“He’s got to want you to sleep with you,” Mels points out. Amy has a feeling neither of them knows which he they’re talking about.

“So? Pretty sure there’s nothing wrong with mutual consent.”

“Liking sex is one thing. Everybody likes sex. But when you’re letting it be all there is for you, that’s another issue.” Mels starts to wash her hands. “You and your  _boys_ , Amy. It’s always some boy with you.”

Amy turns and zips out of the bathroom, because she won't hear that shit, and she wants to bleach her mind of it, especially the parts that are true.

On her nightstand is a note from Patches:  _sorry, Pond_. If he were there she’d scream at him not to apologize, because you don’t apologize unless there’s something wrong. And there’s nothing wrong, not with them, not with Rory, not with Mels, not with Amy herself. Not a goddamn thing. They’re fine, they’re young. This is the time to figure it all out. She’s allowed her mistakes, if she’s even made any, and she  _hasn’t_. Whatever happened to grace periods?

She changes into her nightie and climbs into bed. Mels reenters; they don’t look at one another or exchange a word. Amy shuts off her light and tries to fall asleep, unfucked and fucked up and ready to start that figuring it out thing. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it crack? Is it angst? We may never truly know.


	5. Portland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features a point of view shift, as in, it’s told from the perspective of someone other than Amy. I did this because a) it keeps me interested, b) it keeps you interested, and c) it works well for the events of this chapter – why I say that is for you to intuit. I’ll do this again, maybe. Only time can tell. 
> 
> It’s also chronologically weird because I usually don’t put time skips in the middle of a chapter. The first 1300 words of this should, timeline-wise, be in chapter four, so just, you know, make believe or something. The last five hundred words should be a chapter all their own. Point is: time passes in this chapter. 
> 
> Also, sorry these author notes aren’t funny. Want to hear a joke? Matt Smith’s wardrobe. (Don’t get upset about it.)

“I changed my mind,” he might say, and he rehearses it now, pushing the words off his tongue. It’s not bad—perhaps a little stilted, but not bad.

But this statement is not entirely true: he doesn’t remember making up his mind, only being rushed with lava-like desire to please Amy in whatever way he could, and she had felt like wet satin against his mouth, which had been arresting in dimensions he rarely fathomed—and he forgot not only to make a decision but how decisions were made, that was the depth of it. And one couldn’t change one’s mind if one’s mind wasn’t made up. One moment he was not going to make love to Amy and the next moment he was; one state had slipped into the other with a shameful sort of ease.

So perhaps he would not say that. Perhaps he would say, “I’ve decided not to be intimate with you.” He practices this alternative; it sounds pleasant enough, the word “intimate” being adequately polite.

“You’re not talking to me, right?” asks Craig’s voice.

Jamie, who lies with his quantum mechanics book across his stomach and his vision half-obscured by his pillow, glances over at his roommate. He had forgotten Craig’s presence, as his headspace feels rather cloudy today, swarmed with—something. Too cloudy to finish his own metaphors. Craig sits at the desk, headphones around his neck, eyeing Jamie over a spread of chemistry notes.

“I don’t want to be intimate with you, either.”

“Thanks?”

Craig doesn’t know Jamie’s predicament, of course, the one that kept him fitful through the night and distracted him in his morning classes, since he’d disguised it beneath his quotidian cheer. Yet Craig’s not-knowing is problematic: any minute he’s going to start wondering about that “either” and ask the dangerous question—

“Does this have something to do with your neck?”

This is not the inquiry Jamie expected, but it is more or less to the point.

His face feels hot, and he touches the bruises automatically. As he’d discovered on returning to his dorm last night, they are rather dramatic.

“It’s potentially related.”

“Two things,” says Craig, shutting his notebook. “Who is she, and why’re you saying no?”

“Doubt you know her,” Jamie coughs.

“Are you sure _you_ know her, then? Because if you know somebody I don’t, I swear. The only person you ever even hang out with is—” The truth of what he’s about to say and the look on Jamie’s face (devastated, blanching) bring Craig his epiphany. “You—and _Amy_?” He’s gaping rather pointedly at his friend.

Hearing it put this way, him and Amy, is enough to rouse Jamie, who sits up, textbook thudding off his stomach. “Hey, hey.”

“Oh, Craig, Amy and I are just friends!” squeals Craig, in what’s clearly meant to be a rather derisive imitation of Jamie’s voice.

“That was true back then!”

“I didn’t even think that you weren’t, just that you liked her.”

Jamie blushes hotly, glaring at the floor. It’s not so farfetched: he’s got his charm and his style and he’s very clever, after all, and Amy has no doubt noticed, since he doesn’t put much stock in modesty and she’s painfully good at noticing things anyway. “We’re friends, we get on really well, and the first time I met her she tried to kiss me,” he declares, falsifying pride in the encounter. To think, _him_ liking a _girl_. Girls liked him, Mels and Amy and the others during his freshman year (well, perhaps not Donna). And if any one of them ever got the wrong impression from him, he’d decided, that was her fault.

Except after last night, it would be difficult to explain to Amy how it was, exactly, that she had gotten the wrong impression.

It’s unfortunate and exhilarating. Amy makes him feel naked when he wants nothing more than to be clothed; she watches him so closely she could count his eyelashes. That night at the pool she had pinned him up like a classroom map and searched for his Mexico. Lucky for all parties, Jamie escaped, or else she might’ve found it. He preferred, prefers, his Mexicos hidden, rolled up and left in unpopular corners where no one cares to examine them.

“Amy Pond wants _you_. Hottest girl at this school, who has a—” The memory pales Craig. “—has a _boyfriend_ —”

“I know!” Jamie straightens his shoulders. “It’s not all that scandalous. They’re on a break.” He steals Amy’s phrase, as he doesn’t know what it means; only that it erases their villainy.

“And when did that happen?”

“Over the break, I think.”

“So she breaks up with Rory, comes back here and, first things first, tries to get with you?” Craig slumps over. “Am I doing something wrong?”

“She doesn’t really want to get—with me. I mean, she does, but only for a—you know, not a…”

He traces the stitching of his comforter, avoiding Craig’s eyes. Jamie does not enjoy Amy’s desire to get-with-him-for-only-a-bit, as it seems like Craig would, as it seems like Craig expects him to do. He might enjoy the getting-with more were it a star in some brighter constellation, larger and more tender and featuring all shapes of affection. He _might_ enjoy such a star formation, yes, “might”, a word encapsulating the profound pause even this sweeter prospect gives him, since he worries that to be a star with Amy—or anyone, really—will unfurl him in a sort of gobbling supernova-esque tragedy. In this scenario, she peels at him until she realizes he’s all husk, just the tectonic glimmer of a person, and he’d be undone and she’d be somewhere not with him, which is his very roundabout way of thinking he does not want her to see all he has to offer or else she may hurt him. Being briefly-gotten-with frightens him, but this prospect needles his center.

Maps: could he map Amy like she’s mapped him? He could use her freckles as the cities.

“Can’t believe you’d—she’s just got out of a two-year relationship,” Craig continues to goad him, apparently. “And you expect her to date you.”

“Expect?” Jamie repeats, warm with incredulity. “I don’t expect anything, but I don’t want the other thing. It’s not me.”

“Fun isn’t you?” Craig says this like he knows exactly what it will (and does) do to Jamie. Even though the latter senses his friend’s manipulation, he can’t stop the insult welling in his throat.

“It isn’t _fun_.” Craig looks at him like he’s sprouted tentacles or some such.

“You had it?”

Jamie examines his hands. “Not strictly speaking.”

“So then—“

“It wouldn’t be fun to just have it and then be her friend and forget about it,” he says simply.

Craig shrugs and reopens his book. “It’s your funeral.”

Jamie arrives late enough to history to avoid pre-class chatter (Amy is there; her sweater is red), greets her stiffly and buries himself in note taking for the rest of the period. When they’re dismissed, she stands by the door, waiting for him.

“Pond,” he says, his voice coarse.

“Coffee,” she says. It’s not an invitation so much as a demand. He nods and in twenty minutes they’re sitting on the green, not far from where they were plastered and stargazing a few weeks ago. She’s got her coffee, as was her demand, and he sips at Earl Grey with heaps of cream and sugar, the only way he stands the bitterness.

The wind bustles Amy’s hair in the hollow of her throat. He says, “I’ve decided not to be intimate with you,” like he practiced.

“Oh,” she says. She taps the top of her cup with a tangerine nail. “So, what happened yesterday…” He shakes his head.

Amy sniffs, tilts her head to the side, the hair that had been caught at her neck tumbling over her shoulder. He searches carefully for a glimpse of her mood, and he thinks maybe it’s there but he can’t see it, and he imagines a formula that solves for Amy Pond.

“Is that all right?” he asks.

 Amy nods. “I didn’t want to go to Paris anyway,” she says, and gets out their homework. His head is still cloudy. Maybe it’ll rain.

* * *

Jamie is not lonely. Jamie doesn’t get lonely; only people who need people can be lonely, and he doesn’t need people, never has done.

But in the weeks after he ends things with Amy, he feels a peculiar hollow dollop forming above his belly. The cavity winds him and wakes him up at night, where it sometimes obliges him to sit for hours listening to the central air and puffs of his roommate’s breathing, until he can catch his breath.

She doesn’t call. She doesn’t text. She doesn’t wait for him after class, or come by his room. She doesn’t show up at his library late on Monday nights with Oreos and yoohoos from CVS. There are no party invitations, there are no digs at his clothes or his hair.

If the cavity is the absence of these things, then he doesn’t recall when they became important enough to inhabit his physiology. Not that he thinks Amy is unimportant, of course, but she’d sort of—snuck up on him. And he, well, you know. Misses her. He _supposes_.

Over a month has passed before he does something to fix it. It’s a spur-of-the-moment decision, too, but by the time he realizes what a risky offer he’s made, the text has been sent and Amy has responded, _okay_.

 _Come to Portland this summer_.

* * *

Two weeks, and Amy’s packed for it. Jamie labors to get her suitcase into the back of the station wagon, while his friend looks on, frowning.

“Do you need some help?”

“Nope!” He loses his grip and the bag slides down. A plastic corner snags his knee, but Jamie tries to pass the grimace off as a smile. Amy’s frown deepens.

“I got it in my car before. Just let me help.”

“I’m quite all right, Pond.” His next shove gets every scrap of effort he can manage, and the bag slides in. Grinning, he leans against the stacked luggage, but his panting undermines the gesture’s finesse. Amy chuckles and heads round to the passenger seat, leaving him to shut the back door and feel strangely elated: he’s never been so thrilled to be laughed at.

The first thing he says, which he’s been planning the whole ride to the airport, is “You’re not in Kan—”

“Oh, _don’t_ ,” groans Amy. “The only place I don’t get that joke is when I’m actually in Kansas, it’s terrible.”

“My apologies, Dorothy Gale.” She shoves him gently.

“Is your Mom going to be home?”

“Nah. She’s in Toyko.” She’d stayed nine months this year instead of the usual six, which Jamie has been pretending not to notice. He guides the car on to I-84. “She’s got an apartment there and stuff. She’s got one in New York, too, and it’s just empty most of the year, so if you ever need a place to crash in Manhattan, you know.”

“Cool,” says Amy. He worries for a moment that their dynamic has suffered so irreversibly that this is the extent of the conversation they can have, a series of questions and answers, purely informative and ending in stuffy pauses. Then she adds, “I’ve never been to New York except for the airport when I was going to Rome.”

“Really? You’d like it.”

“Yeah. Think I want to live there someday.”

“Me too! We should live together.” Jamie glances sideways at her.

“Okay,” she laughs. The sun through the open window backlights her hair as it’s jumbled in the highway wind.

 Satisfied, he disguises his spying by fiddling with the radio dial, though this is the NPR station he likes.

“Nice outfit.”

He’s packed his tweed away for the summer, and the vest from a three-piece suit hangs unbuttoned on his frame in its stead. “What? These are my summer clothes.”

“They look pretty similar to your winter clothes,” she says, with a sort of piteous, amused frown.

“It’s very different! This shirt is linen. It breathes better, keeps me cool.” He doesn’t admit that since it’s seventy-five today the breathability of the linen isn’t quite doing it, hence his rolled-up sleeves.

“Why don’t you just wear ratty band t-shirts or cargo shorts or something, like normal people?”

“Normal,” he scoffs.

“If I bought you a t-shirt, would you wear it?”

“Why would you buy me a t-shirt when you could buy me a kazoo, or—or a mini-bike? Something cool. Who wants a t-shirt?”

Amy just shakes her head, and then gazes outside. “It’s so nice, and here I thought it’d be overcast and raining. Guess I’m showing all my stereotypes about the Pacific Northwest.” Accordingly she sheds her jacket, and he notices—it’s so obvious it doesn’t even require noticing, really—that the tank top she’s wearing covers little more than necessary.

“We get about four inches of rain a month during the winter, but in the summer it’s basically dry.”

 She gawks liberally at all the pine tree greenery flashing by them. “Huh. Well, I hope the rumors about the coffee are true, at least.”

The car zips over Fremont Bridge, and Jamie informs her that this is the Willamette River, for which the Willamette Valley—Oregon’s most populous region—is named. “You sound like a geography textbook,” she tells him. “I didn’t even know Portland had a river.”

“It’s got two, actually.”

After a while the buildings start to thin out. “I thought you lived in the city.”

“I live within the city limits.” 

“On a mountain?” she asks, as they’ve been driving uphill for nearly ten minutes.

“Sort of.” A nervous twinge starts up in his stomach.

They reach the gate and Amy says, “Holy shit.” He guesses her house doesn’t have a gate. When he presses the button clipped to his sun visor, it swings open.

The station wagon climbs the long shady drive to the house, Amy falling silent as it comes into view. He fights a blush as he pulls into the front drive. He’s forgotten the imposing effect wealth tends to have on people, as he often does.

“Your house is big,” she manages.

“Thanks.”

He climbs out of the car and hears her say behind him, “I can’t believe I didn’t get it when you started talking about an empty apartment in Manhattan.”

“Get what?” he calls, starting to drag her bags from the trunk.

“That you’re loaded. Like your family.” She exits the car and grabs one of her suitcases.

“Loaded is a strong word.”

“Old money?”

“I suppose.”

“So yes. Wow. Are you all like, the Portland McCrimmons?” she asks, with what’s probably supposed to be a posh accent.

“The Portland Smiths. Mom’s family. Here we go.” He shuts the hatch and tugs the last of the luggage with him to the front door, which he finds unlocked. When he sets Amy’s things down inside, embarrassment rushes him—embarrassment at the foyer’s intricate mural, at the hardwood paneling and antique furniture, at all the classical paintings in overwrought frames, at the claw-foot tub she’ll find later on, at the view from the back of the house through the bay windows, all of which he’s grown accustomed to. He won’t tell her how many bedrooms or acres there are unless she asks, he decides.

He turns to her, and she’s staring at the mural like she’s stumbled on the Mona Lisa, somehow arrived in Portland, her eyes huge and bright. The sight of her wonder erases his humility. “Have I impressed you yet, Amy Pond?”

She looks at him slowly, a single eyebrow arched. “Nice place.”

“Nice!” he repeats, trying to glare but smiling broadly, unable to feign disappointment in her. Jamie starts for the kitchen, motioning for her to follow.

“So why do you drive that crappy old car?”

He pretends not to hear this. “David! Chris!” Throwing open the fridge, he asks, “Do you want something to eat?”

“I’m fine.” She’s wandered over to the window to see Willamette Valley spilling in every direction. “I’ve never been in a house like this.”

“I thought you said it was only okay.”

“It’s pretty incredible. Happy?”

The food selection is disappointing and he shuts the door. “That’s not the sort of thing that’s going to make me happy.” Or at least he hopes he doesn’t need Amy’s validation. He doesn’t know what it means if he does.

“ _Who’s been shouting_?” 

David is standing at the entrance to the kitchen. He’s in his pajamas.

“It’s one o’clock in the afternoon, David.”

“So? Does that entitle you to shout?”

Amy steps forward. “Hey, I’m Amy, I’m—”

“Oh, you’re the _girl_.” David gives her a rather unsubtle once-over, and Jamie ducks his head. It’s her hair, he’s sure, that’s why people always look at her like that. “I’m David.” They shake hands, Jamie fighting the compulsion to put himself between them, for whatever reason.

“You’re older than I was expecting,” she says, settling on the sofa in what’s (seriously) called the breakfast nook.

David just snorts, hopping to sit on the kitchen island, but Jamie chimes in, “Wait until you meet Chris.”

“Chris is ancient,” agrees David. “He’s eight years older than me, fifteen years older than Jamie. Made things easier when Dad passed, though. He just sort of stepped in.”

Jamie can feel Amy’s eyes on him. “Where _is_ Chris?” he asks his brother.

“I’ve been asleep, how should I know?”

Chris arrives two hours later when David’s gone off to do whatever and they’ve gone out to the gardens to enjoy the weather. He wears his big leather jacket, in spite of the heat, and looks out of place standing by the azaleas blooming purple.

“I made sure the yellow bedroom was ready,” he tells Jamie.

“Your rooms have names,” mutters Amy, like he’s said something in a language she barely understands.

“Thank you,” Jamie tells Chris, who then looks to their ginger guest.

“Where are you from, Amy?”

“Outside of Topeka.”

Chris grins. “Long way from home.”

“So I’m told.”

“Don’t tell her any _Wizard of Oz_ jokes,” Jamie adds. Chris smiles and nods and goes back inside.

“I like your brothers.” Amy’s legs are stretched like white marble levies along her lawn chair.

“You don’t know them very well,” he says, face pressed against the back of his chair so he can see her laugh.  

He shows her the room Chris mentioned. It’s smaller than some of the other bedrooms, but is one of two with a balcony. She just laughs and stands in the adjoining bathroom, laughing and laughing, the all-over Spanish tile overwhelming her figure as he watches from the door.

“I’m the third on the right, down the hall,” he says, when she’s calmed down. “If you need anything.”

Dinner, the cooking and the eating of it, is a riot of bad singing and brotherly joshing and Portland fact sharing.  As far as he can tell, Amy is enjoying herself, but she’s quieter after the bathroom incident. They say goodnight at twelve and he showers and lies in bed, contemplating Kansas.

Kansas keeps him up for another half an hour, long enough to hear the knock at his door, which cracks open.

“Patches?”

He shuts his eyes and fumbles for the light. “Come in.”

“Hi,” says Amy, and he hears the door close. After he finds the switch, she’s standing there in a plain pinstriped nightie, looking—different. Rumpled, not her clothes or her face, just—perhaps it’s in her eyes, though he doesn’t know how that would work.

“Pond. Hello.”

She takes a long pause to survey his room. “Wow.”

“I went through an astrophysics phase in middle school and we never bothered to get it repainted,” he says. She staring, of course, at the complete star map plastered across his ceiling. “It glows in the dark, too.”

“It’s cool.” She shuffles to his bedside. “Can I…”

He supposes there’s plenty of room, and while this situation reminds him dangerously of the last time they tried to share a bed, she does seem sad. He doesn’t know how to consolidate dealing with sadness and denying her wishes. “Come on in,” he says, scooting over.

“Thanks.”

When she’s been under the covers for a bit and hasn’t said anything, he asks, “Is something the matter?”

“I guess it should be, otherwise I’ve got no excuse to be here.”

He nods, though he doesn’t know what she means, and rolls on to his side to look at her.

Amy’s mouth is a line until she speaks. She talks down, to the quilt. “I’m sorry. About the past few months. Ignoring you. I just needed—time. And it’s not because—you were right, about us, and I would’ve said the same thing if you hadn’t.” Jamie feels something that’s like a nail scraping across his heart, and then feels ashamed for being affected at all. Feeling disappointed that the thing he didn’t want wasn’t his to have in the first place. Not his finest moment. She continues, “But it wasn’t because of you that I was going to say it, it was because of other stuff, and when you said it—I didn’t know why you were ending it. And I guess I thought you didn’t say because it was about me.” Her sigh is heavy, lifting her whole chest. “I think I was a little embarrassed at how much it hurt to have you not want me.”

“Amy.” He’s surprised. “I did want you.” She looks at him sharply. “I wanted you, not in the way you wanted me.”

“How did I want you?”

“For. You know.”

“Oh! For sex.” She grins. “Yeah, I did want you for that. You’re twenty-one and you won’t say sex, Patches.”

“So?”

“So.” Amy laughs, falling back into the pillows. “You’re so weird,” she says, almost to herself. “Why do I like you so much?”

His stomach swirls pleasantly like on a rollercoaster at the top of a plunge, the sensation forcing a giggle from his throat. “You _like_ me.”

“Yeah, you little shit,” Amy says, but she’s laughing.

“I like me too.”

“Oh, shut up.” She reaches over to jostle him and, overcome with affection, he grabs her arm, pulling her to him, pressing their foreheads together. He decides he doesn’t care if his brothers happen upon them and think the worst or if he’s giving her the wrong impression; he just wants to be close, for a moment, because it’s glorious to have her here, and she’s glorious, and she smells of clean laundry and cinnamon sticks.

“Jamie.”

He doesn’t remember closing his eyes but he must’ve, because he has to open them to see her. She doesn’t call him Jamie, not ever: only the nickname that reminds him more of clowns each time he hears it. Maybe he should ask her to call him his proper name all the time, but it might upset her, and he doesn’t want that. She’s so near he can make out even the faintest of her freckles.

“Yes?” he asks, gulping.

“Tell me about your dad.”

He shuts his eyes again. “There’s not much to tell.”

“How old were you?”

“Eleven.”

“How’d it happen?”

“Bad heart.”

He feels her press a kiss to his cheek. Her breath is sticky.

“The car was his?”

He looks at her, unnerved. “How’d you—”

“Just a guess.” She’s shut her eyes now too. “My dad was that too, a bad heart.” He gets the ugly feeling that he never wants to let another person see her face again, because he’s the only one who sees it right, for all its pale ruby-lipped freckle-smattered glory. This fearful possessiveness is exactly what worried him, what worries him, about being with Amy, and even more fearful is its appearance now, so soon. But he doesn’t let go of her, because she’s right, he’s childish, and he doesn’t _want_ to stop, not yet _._

“And your mom?”

“She visits sometimes. They took away custody when she got sick. Mentally, you know.”   He nods enough that their noses brush. “See, Jamie,” she says, and he definitely likes her saying his real name. “How’re we supposed to hold hands and go on dates and be all of that stuff if we don’t even know this kind of thing about each other?”

“We’d learn it.” His voice sounds like he’s underwater.

“And what if we don’t like each other? What if we get to know each other like, so well, and we just—hate each other?”

“I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t make sense, you and me. It’s stupid. Right?” she asks, holding him tightly. She’s not lying but he gathers that the next ten hours will pass in an alternate universe, the space of his bedroom transformed into a place where they do more than make sense. They’ve already got their very own sky, after all.

“Idiotic. Do you want to stay here?” He pulls their foreheads apart and she rests her head on his shoulder.

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” he says. She falls asleep against him.

* * *

 

A few days into fall term, he sees Amy with a reedy, large-nosed boy in the dining hall. He approaches their table before getting his meal.

“Jamie,” she says, jumping to her feet. “This is Rory.”

He feels nervous. A little validated, by the look of it. “Rory!”

“Sorry it’s taken us so long to meet,” says Rory, shaking his hand with a tight-lipped smile. Amy looks back and forth between the two of them.

“It had to happen eventually, I suppose,” says Jamie, and Rory nods knowingly.

“Right, the wedding. Sorry,” he tells Amy gleefully. “I keep forgetting and remembering again.”

The blood is gone from Amy’s face.

“Whose wedding? Who’s getting married?” asks Jamie, very politely.

“Oh.” Rory glances at Amy, who appears too stricken to even speak. “I thought you’d seen it online or something.”

“Rory and I got engaged yesterday,” Amy says, in a near monotone. “Was going to text you.”

“It probably won’t be until after graduation, you know,” adds Rory. “But we spent the whole summer without each other and it was the worst.”

Jamie nods. “Congratulations. You’ll be very happy, I’m sure. Better have it in the fall, I like fall weddings, you get the foliage changing. Very elegant. You could have it at my house, it’s very nice, we’ve got a garden, it’s big and everything, Amy will tell you.”

Rory is glowing at Amy, though he at least listens to Jamie. “That’s really generous. You should eat with us and we can talk about it.”

“Actually, I just finished up. But I’ll see you both.”

He salutes them and marches out, not looking at her. From behind him he hears Rory saying quietly, “He’s not what I expected.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things. One: yes, Chris and David are modeled on Nine and Ten, but I’ve never written either of those Doctors and would never try so don’t hold me to it. Two: I am sure you’re wondering, “what happened in Portland, bitch?!?!?!” or something. The answer is a bunch of close calls, but none as close as what I did show you of Portland, and therefore they’re unimportant. I skipped those scenes because I wanted to end the chapter this way and it was already too long. And if you really want to know what happened in Portland, I’ll write an oneshot about it. Okay, phew.


	6. Pompeii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this isn’t a particularly Rory-positive chapter; apologies if you’re offended by that. It’s also really, really different, and I would ask you to bear with me. You can quit if you’d like, but at least try to make it through the whole chapter first.

“This is the worst thing that’s ever happened.”

“Maybe a little hyperbolic,” says Rory.

“No, I’m almost a hundred percent sure I’ve never been worse.”

He laughs dryly. Amy drains her champagne. The band starts up a slow number, and she sees that some people are dancing in the small space apparently provided for this purpose. “Why would you want to dance here?” she asks.

“When you could be learning about Pompeii, you mean?”

“What?” She glances at him. “Oh, right.”

“Yeah, isn’t that what this is about?”

“Right. Yes,” she says. Really this is about a bunch of rich assholes getting to come here and feel like the educated cultural elite, while people like Amy lick their boots for money. But the posters do read _Pompeii: The Forgotten City_ , and it’s still the Museum of Natural History, rich assholes or no. And the rotunda looks pretty good, all done up with glinting lights and red velvet finery for the opening.

“What’d you contribute, again?” Rory swirls his wine absently.

“Research. And I wrote some of the little blurbs they put by the displays.”

“So, something to do with old pottery.”

Amy tosses him a glare. “Actually, they’ve got this archeologist to come in and design a conservation plan for the ruins. They’re raising the money for it with the exhibit and this thing.” She waves a hand to indicate the donors-only night of music and clown magic and caricature artists, of the museum regressed into a playground.

Rory looks mildly impressed. “They’re not going to make you do any work stuff tonight?” From their cocktail table, they have a good vantage of the spectacular crowd gliding through the entrance.

“Nope, so I plan on getting super trashed.”

Rory grimaces. “Why is it that you’re not enjoying this? A party with ruins is right up your alley.” He’s right, she supposes, but there’s something about the gala’s extravagance that reminds her of the drainage problem in her claustrophobic Brooklyn bathroom.

“I just hate these people, is all.” She tugs on her skirt as discreetly as manageable. She’s got the shortest hemline in the room, by the looks of it, and while a black cocktail frock, an up do, and a pair of heels can get her in just about anywhere, she’s borderline underdressed at an event like this. She needs to get some new clothes. She’ll be thirty soon, and once you hit thirty a dress this short is crass at best. “Anyway, everything is fun when you’re super trashed.”

“The lava cakes seem a little insensitive.” Rory sniggers at a passing waiter.

Amy snorts and tugs on his arm. “Bar, now. I need another drink.”

The information desk is decorated with tea lights nestled in tumblers, perched at the top of tower-stacked glasses. The usual sign has been covered with a banner; it now reads “Open Bar,” two words Amy loves.

“So how’s Jennifer?” she asks, once she’s got a fresh glass in hand.

“Fine. Six months pregnant, but other than that.” Amy nods and he gives her a look, the look he gets before he asks a difficult question, and she’s pretty sure she knows what the question is. Now would be a good time for her life to start flashing before her eyes. “So, speaking of partners.” He clears his throat. Yep, it’s coming. “What ever happened to Jeff?”

And there it is. Amy forces a smile, playing avoidance as irony—a favorite game of hers. “Well, I invited my ex-fiancé to the party of the year. How much more do you need to know?”

“Ex-ex-fiancé, technically,” he mutters.

“Right. Sometimes I forget we tried that bullshit twice.” She doesn’t look at Rory’s face when she says this.

“Can’t say I’ll miss him. Jeff. Kind of an empty shell,” says Rory.

Amy nods. “No idea how we lasted as long as we did.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” he laughs into his drink.

She bites back assorted growling invectives, the same put-downs and taunts that surge in her throat whenever Rory gets smug like this. In spite of all the ways she can think to tell him that, _no_ , he’s not the best she’s ever been with, there are plenty who measure up, stop being an arrogant douchebag, etc.—in spite of all the ways she could say it, she never does. He takes pleasure in her miserable existence, the one she started carving for herself when she left him, _actual real pleasure_ , and she’d been furious until she realized why he depends on it.

Rory’s life has cheated him of joy. And this belief he has, that Amy’s dumping him backfired catastrophically, has been getting him through the past few years, through his nursing degree and his marriage and his first baby on the way. Amy left him and Amy is alone; she doesn’t know what he’d do if he didn’t have that. It’s better if at least one of them has something to be happy about. It’s her fault, anyway, that he’s destitute—it’s the least she can do, right? It’s why he’s here tonight, aside from Jeff being out of the picture. She allows him his stupid glory and wonders if this what maturity feels like. And she takes some time to pity Jennifer, because, you know.    

Then again, Amy doesn’t tell Rory about the two other men she screwed during her year with Jeff or what he’d called her when he stormed out of the apartment. She doesn’t tell him about the drunken voicemails her ex occasionally leaves her, though it’s been two months since they broke up. And she certainly doesn’t tell him that she permitted the relationship was built on a false pretense, as if Amy could ever love a guy as shit boring as Jeff.

Lord knows Rory would bloat like some overstuffed animal with this kind of knowledge, and she just wants to keep him alive, not prove he’s right.

“Let’s go look at the Hall of Asian Mammals, I like that one,” she says, and it’s as they’re starting off from the bar that she hears the voice.

“Amy Pond?”

Strange how the voice always comes for her before anything else, out of nowhere, lightening in the dark when she doesn’t even know it’s been storming. Every time he speaks it sounds like he’s scratching out what he has to say. Every time he _spoke_. Christ, what’s she going to do about tenses, now? Amy turns around.

It’s him. She knew it was him, of course, but the reality of his standing there deflates her half-a-second fantasy that she might escape this encounter. He’s in a tux with a top hat, which he works—well, horribly well, heart-clenchingly butterfly-inducingly well—looking older, probably because he is. So is she; she wants to cover her face.

“Jamie,” she says. Helplessly visceral excitement tugs at the corners of her mouth. Will she smile? Is she smiling already?

He hugs her so tightly some champagne sloshes over the rim of her glass, so her fingers will be sticky later. She can’t tell if it’s the embrace, or if she’s stopped breathing, but she can feel the air trapped in her lungs.

“Amy Pond! How long has it been?” He’s shouting into her ear and Amy hugs him back with the hope he’ll let her go. It nearly works: he pulls them apart but holds her at arms length, gawking unabashedly. His face is open and bright and buffed with happiness. The age suits him, gives his features better contrast, makes him look less like a dumpling and more like a man. “And Rory, hi there, Rory,” he adds, with perfunctory nodding acknowledgement. Amy can guess what her date’s face is doing and she’s glad he’s out of her periphery. “How long _has_ it been?” Jamie repeats, turning back to Amy, still aglow.

“Seven years now, I think.” She peels his hands from her arms, holding them instead, whatever gets him off her body.

Rory steps forward to where she can see him. “What’re you doing in New York?”

“He went to Columbia,” Amy says. They look at her curiously. Her face feels a little warm. “Well, _sorry_ for remembering.”

Patches beams at her. _Patches_. Old habits, she supposes. “I did. I got my doctorate. I’m doing some post-doc work there now.”

“Look at that. You’re a doctor, Rory’s a nurse,” she jokes. Patches seems more amused by her effort than the joke itself, and Rory continues to frown.

“And what’re you, then?” asks Jamie.

“Oh. I’m. I’m a research assistant. Here, actually. I’m thinking about journalism afterwards.” Here Jamie’s gone and become a physicist, a fucking _physicist_ , and he’s probably going to be the world’s youngest Nobel prize winner or something ridiculous, and she’s not even allowed to touch the relics.

His face glazes over at the mention of her job. “You work here? So you know River.”

“That’s—Dr. Song?” Amy eyes him. Is that why he’s shown up here? Something to do with—River? “Yeah, she’s my boss.” Dr. Song is an imposing lady if there ever was one. Flirts with friendliness, maybe even friendship, but doesn’t believe in second chances. Unless you’re a mummy.

“Ah.” Patches nods. “She’s my wife.”   

Amy looks at the hands locked into hers. There’s a golden band around the ring finger of the left one; his thumb traces a small circle on her palm. Her gaze rises, maybe too slowly to disguise whatever this feeling is that’s galloping through her. _No_ , she thinks. _Don’t smile apologetically. Don’t apologize to me for this_. But he’s doing it. The sorry is etched into the slight asymmetry of his lips and his dying glow. He apologizes to her, if you count a smile that way, apologizes even though he has never done so before. She will have to ignore this until the real thing comes along, for her own sanity. Patches is married and Rory is married and Amy is still cheating on guys she dates half-heartedly because she doesn’t know how to look for anything better. She won’t hear any apologies, no. She won’t deign to be pitied.

“I didn’t know Dr. Song was married,” she hears herself say. “She doesn’t talk much about her personal life.” Dr. Song is forty, maybe even fifty. They’re twenty-nine, Patches is _twenty-nine_.

He laughs. “She wouldn’t.”

“When did that happen?” Rory asks, sounding flat.

“Oh, when did we—” Jamie seems to realize he’s potentially confessed a serious rudeness, not inviting his old friends to his wedding. “A couple of years ago now. It was a very small ceremony, at city hall. We just had Chris and David there as witnesses.” Rory nods and smiles with an air of obvious falseness that Patches can’t read. “And what about you two? Speaking of wedding invites I never got. How long’s it been now?” he asks, dropping Amy’s hands.

“Zero years, zero months and zero days, I think,” says Amy.

“Sounds about right,” agrees Rory.

“We called it quits after graduation,” she tells a very puzzled-looking Jamie. “And then tried it again two years later, got engaged again, broke up again.” Amy gives Rory a big, bright smile. “I think we’re pretty much decided that it’s not going to happen.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Patches clearly senses the passive aggression strung between his companions but can neither identify nor subvert it, so he hops in place, trying to change the energy. “Rory, you’ve got to meet River. Let me find her, I’ll be right back.” He vanishes.

Amy slumps against the nearest pillar. “Fuck.”

“That’s rough, running into him of all people,” says Rory.

“Yeah, yeah.” She knocks her head against the marble.

He continues musing, “Guy you were in love with in college gets married, doesn’t invite you to the wedding.” Oh good, a new chapter for _The Tragedy of Amy Pond_ , by Rory Williams. He’s not even doing a good job disguising how thrilled he is.

“His wife is hot, but she’s twenty years older than him,” says Amy, and Rory snorts. “What am I supposed to make of that? I have no—”

“Come along, Pond!” cries Patches, arrived out of nowhere. “And you too, Williams. Come on.”

Assuming their compliance, he bounds off toward the Hall of North American Mammals. She follows him and Rory follows her. The hall comprises several long corridors of silky wooden floors and taxidermy behind glass. Tonight there are ladies in statement pieces and men in tails clumped variously, chatting and laughing age-appropriate laughs. River, Amy has noticed, has a silhouette that stands out a hundred feet away, and tonight her generous hair and hips and bust and small, impossibly small for a woman that age, waist all appear even clearer against the walls of half-starved socialites with incomparable bodies in incomparable dresses. River’s gown is a curve-hugging black number. Her heels are bright red. She’s talking to an older guy who reminds Amy of Sean Connery’s Bond, except Bond would never let himself look so transparently enamored of a woman.     

She smirks when she sees Jamie. “Hello, sweetie.” Bond looks at Rory and Amy, as if to say, ‘who’s this young man usurping my flirtation?’ Clearly he remains ignorant of the ring on River’s finger—how had Amy never noticed? Jamie kisses his wife on the cheek, and she spots his friends. “Amy. Hello.” Her smirk dissolves to a smile, and Amy realizes that, _oh god_ , Jamie has been _having sex_ with her _boss_. Jamie, who _fingered her_ when he was still _a virgin_. If she wasn’t blushing before, she’s doing it now.

“Hi, Dr. Song,” she says weakly.

“River, River.” Jamie talks very close to her. “Amy was one of my best friends at school. And she works for you! Isn’t that amazing? What an incredible coincidence. And here’s Rory, he was—our friend too,” he adds, losing a little steam.

“Nice to meet you, River.” Rory indicates his empty drink. “I’m going to get another glass of wine. Amy?” She nods and hands him her depleted flute.

“My, my,” says River. She waves off Bond, who sulks away from their group. River started looking slightly more interested in Amy when her husband introduced their backstory, but it seems like she’s as difficult to impress in her private life as she is in her professional one. Amy wonders how Jamie, the most earnest person she’s met to this day, can stand it. “How long has it been since you two last saw each other?”

“Seven years. Can you believe that, seven years?” says Jamie, but neither woman heeds him much.

“You look radiant tonight, Amy, dear,” offers River.

“Oh, I’m underdressed, you look amazing. I love your shoes,” Amy says. She’s jumping on her words, all of it coming out too fast.

“Amy and I had such incredible times. There was this period where we used to everything together.” _Except fuck_.

“Oh,” croons River. “That’s sweet. Has James changed much, do you think?”

_Well, he fucks now, apparently._ “Not even a little,” says Amy. Her cheeks are starting to hurt. Jamie and River exchange a glowy-loving-couple glance. Amy continues, “We sort of grew apart during senior year, though. I was busy. And who was that new girl you met, again?”

“A _new_ girl?” asks River, grinning.

Jamie smiles urgently at Amy. “Clara. Her name was Clara.”

“Right, Clara. Very cute but a foot shorter than you, if I remember.” Jamie nods, glancing intermittently between Amy and his wife. “Whatever happened to her?”

“She owns a restaurant in San Francisco. Serves nothing but soufflés,” he coughs.

Rory returns and hands Amy her drink. She tries not to be too obvious about gulping it down.

“Well, it’s about time for my remarks, so I’m afraid I have leave you all for the time being. Lovely to meet you, Rory.” River squeezes Jamie’s arm before she goes.

“ _James_ ,” says Amy once she’s disappeared.

“What?”

“I just can’t believe she calls you that. That’s hilarious.” Jamie laughs nervously, not quite getting the joke.

“You know what, I think I’m ready to head out,” announces Rory. Oh, no, he wouldn’t. “It seems like you’ve got a new date,” he tells Amy. She wants to vomit.

“Are you sure? It’s only ten.”

“We’ve been going to bed early.” He gives Jamie another falsified smile. “My wife is six months pregnant.”

“Oh, oh—wow, congratulations.”

“Yeah. Well, I’ll be seeing you,” Rory says, and he leaves draining his drink.

“Looks like it’s just you and me,” says Jamie.

“Dr. Song’s talk starts soon, we should go.” He nods and they set off back toward the rotunda, silent. They are silent through the whole speech, too, Amy cowed by the intelligence and authority and charm her boss exudes, her boss who’s gone and married the man she couldn’t even get to be her ex. Jamie is brilliant, River is brilliant. They’re probably brilliant together. And Amy, well. Her mediocrity is livable.

When the speech ends and River steps down from the podium, Jamie doesn’t move.

“Aren’t you going to go talk to her?” Amy asks.

“What?” He seems to snap back into reality, and she wonders where his mind had wandered. “Oh, no, she’s got loads of people to talk to right now.”

Of course she does. Amy Pond, queen of self-induced embarrassment! “Makes sense.”

Jamie smiles broadly at her. She sparks with anger at how well he’s aged. Good-looking men who get more good-looking—that’s the sort of thing that’s never, ever fair. “Why don’t we dance?”

“Dance?” she echoes. She can feel the drinks sloshing warmly in her belly, and dancing does sound better than talking. “Sure,” she says, and takes his outstretched hand.   

And so they danced for hours. Her being thoroughly drunk after twenty minutes helped Jamie keep her on the floor, and erased the nervousness and disdain that had clung to her all evening. They do classic dances and silly dances and spin each other and he waves his arms above his head until she laughs wildly at him. At midnight the band retires and they bring in a DJ, at which point Amy’s extensive knowledge of Macklemore lyrics is revealed. By one in the morning the partygoers have largely dissipated and the floor is theirs, and they put in requests until the DJ, too, goes home. This is all right: her dancing has been reduced to swaying gently with her head on Jamie’s shoulder, which she can do without any music.

Feeling his hands on her waist, she mumbles, “You got married.”

“I did,” he says softly.

“Can’t believe it.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t…I don’t know. How’re you even a real person?” She feels him shrug. “I thought I’d imagined you.”

“I’m real.” He pushes her away enough that their eyes can meet, a hand cupping her face. He says, not without great difficulty, “I missed you.”

“Amy can take one of the limos back to her apartment,” says River’s voice, from somewhere behind them. Jamie’s hands fall away from her.

“Thanks,” Amy manages, staring at Jamie’s lapel blankly.

“Are you going to be all right?” he asks. “Do you want me to go back with you?”

_No_. But she can’t seem to make her mouth move. But she’s nodding? Oh, what a betrayal—

Jamie looks at River. “I really ought to—”

“Yes,” says River curtly. “It’s fine. I’ll see you at home.”

The last thing she remembers before waking up outside her place is the bold decision to rest her head on Jamie’s shoulder in the car.

He helps her up the front steps and searches through her purse for her keys, undoubtedly finding her cigarettes and tampons in the process, but she hasn’t got the wits to be self-conscious right now. She points at the appropriate ones until finally they’re in her apartment. Forgetting him, she stumbles to the bathroom and starts puking her guts out, but he must follow her because someone keeps her loose hair from falling in the bowl. By the time she’s done the toilet seat has indented her forehead with a half-moon.

On waking up the next morning, she remembers falling asleep in the bathroom, but she’s in her bed (albeit fully-clothed). The hangover throbs rudely across her skull.

And, she finds upon exiting her room, Jamie is asleep on her sofa. She gasps noisily and he stirs, looking up at her blearily, but smiling.

“I am so sorry,” she says.

“Good morning, Pond.”

“You didn’t need to stay here.” Amy plops into a chair, overwhelmed by the knowledge that, at twenty-nine years old, she still gets so drunk she needs someone to care for her. What part of her is trapped in her college years, and how can she set it free?

“I was worried. You were very sick.” He sits up. In order to sleep, it seems, he’d stripped down to just his undershirt and boxers, the latter of which now peek out from beneath one of her throw blankets.

“Well, that’s really—nice, I guess.” She tries to decide where this ranks on the ever-growing list of embarrassing things she’s done. Amy Pond, grown woman, baby-sat by a manchild. “I’m going to shower, I think.”

“All right.”

“Do you want—” She bites her lip. “I mean, we could get some breakfast or something. I could go for like, a really greasy omelet.” Asking a guy out for hangover food; yes, she’s right back in college again.

“I think I’d best be getting back to River, actually,” he says, doing the apologetic smile thing again. Next time he does it she swears she’ll implode.

“Understandable. Can I let you out now, so I can lock the door behind you? Before I go in the bath, you know.” Because grown women can kick men out of their apartments any time they want.

Jamie looks at her vacantly for a moment, and then springs to action, reaching for his clothes. “Of course.” She watches him get dressed, trying not to think about how this is the reverse of what she’d have wanted seven years ago, him putting clothes on. She still has this thought, naturally, but at least she tried to squash it.

“It was great to see you,” he says as he’s tying his shoes.

“You too.”

“And now you’ve got my number, so there’s no excuse not to call.”

“I would never.”

“I fully expect to hear from you daily, Pond. We’ll pick up right where we left off.”

Amy chokes back a laugh. “Sure.”

She accidentally slams the door behind him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the unanswered questions of this chapter, most of them to do with their senior year—how does Rory know she loved Jamie, what happened with Clara, etc.—will be answered. Like I say, I know the time skip and… other developments are a lot, but I appreciate if you’re still interested and sticking with me because clearly this fic has become ambitious. 
> 
> Also, if you’re thinking that Amy seems a little different, it’s because she is. But she hasn’t had a very good seven years, so you might be a little cynical, too.


	7. Park

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, I’ll say that the speed at which I’m writing this fic (and ask any fic writer you know) is amazing. I’ve never done or seen anything like it and I’m consistently surprising myself. Second, part of the reason I’m working so fast is because everyone has been wonderfully supportive, and I honestly couldn’t ask for a better group of readers. Your reviews and tumblr messages and tweets mean a lot to me, and I’m sorry for the pain I may have caused you, but know that I appreciate you sticking with me. And yes, I will “fix it.” But it might take some time.

Twenty more minutes.

Amy waits like she’s never waited before, with her life riding on the passing time, except she thinks this about every mid-morning break like it gets more difficult to sit here and let it come each day.

At ten she begins checking the clock on her computer screen, and continues to do so every five minutes for the next half hour, until it flashes half past and she’s got a precious quarter of an hour to herself. Usually she gets a cup of coffee and sits in the park enjoying the sunshine and a cigarette, because they don’t get much natural light in the mildewed little office she shares with a cantankerous older man known to his coworkers as Lewis, though he doesn’t quite respond to this name and Amy suspects he’s trying to confuse everyone so they’ll leave him be and, in that light, his endeavor is successful. He also smells like he’s been carrying on a serious affair with sauerbraten.

10:12. No good. She shuts her eyes, just for a second. Dozing off.

There’s a knock at the door, and she starts, slamming her knee against the underside of her desk.

“Fuck!”

“Pond,” says that terrible, sympathetic lilting voice. She spins her chair around to see him, palming her injury.

“Hi.” Lewis looks vacantly at Jamie over his computer. “What’re you doing here?” she asks, even though the little tray with Starbucks he’s holding gives it away. Two cups—one for him and one for River, presumably. He brings coffee to his hot cougar wife, and stops by to, what, rub it in her face? No, not Jamie. He’s probably just being friendly. What an idiot.

“I brought you some coffee,” he chirps. “Milk no sugar. I remembered!” Oh.

She eyes him, because this frightens her a little, this blatant pandering. “You aren’t visiting River?”

He gives her a curious look. “River doesn’t like me to disturb her when she’s working.”

“ _I’m_ working.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Naturally he beams when he asks her to ignore all her worldly responsibilities. “Come and sit in the park with me.” Something is odd about him—and she realizes he’s wearing the tweed. The same tweed.

“Is that—” She stands, examining it. “Is this the same stupid jacket?”

Jamie straightens his shoulders. “It isn’t stupid. And, yes.”

“Hasn’t it been like, ten years?”

“Yeah! So?” His hands are full but he tries to check his cuffs anyway, like a cute little peacock. No, not cute, she’s not allowed to think that anymore. “A good tweed can last forever. A good anything can last forever, if you look after it properly.”  

Lewis makes a noise that’s half way between a sneeze and a snort, and Patches jumps, afraid. “I’ve really got to work,” says Amy.

“No, you’re coming with me.”

“My break’s not for twenty minutes.”

“It’s fine.” He gives her one of those grins; she’d forgotten about the grins. “I’ve got an in with the boss.”

She doesn’t really want to give him anything—not her company, in particular—but there’s free Starbucks and an extra twenty minutes of break, so what’s she supposed to say? “Okay, all right, you win.” This is maybe a poor choice of words, since he’s won in the grander scheme of things, too, but she drives past the idea.

“Aha!” He bounces toward the door. She grabs her coat and bag and her coffee from him, and they start out.   

“Is this going to become a regular thing?” she asks on the stairs.

“Is what going to become a regular thing?”

“You know, like, you bringing me coffee at work. Coming to see me.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”

“Well, it’s been seven years since you tried.”

His back is to her and he says nothing. Figures. They emerge into the colorful daytime traffic of the rotunda. The museum is wall-to-wall people, all of them gripped by the most dramatic form of whatever emotion they’re experiencing. Even the bored look _aggressively_ bored. It’s a noisy place, and figuratively, too.

“I think this is an amazing place to work. I’m jealous,” he shouts, over the din of New York’s unmatched tourism. They exit the main entrance to Central Park West and its wall of greenery.

“It’s better when you don’t work in the basement.” They cross the street and enter the park. “Think I’m getting skin cancer.”

“Oh, no,” he protests. “You look extremely well to me.”  Walking side-by-side now, she has a better view of his face, but not good enough to make out his expression.

“What’re you doing?”

“Hm?”

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

“I’m always nice to you.” He smiles, inscrutable. When they were younger she could read him like a billboard. Or most of the time, at least. Their last year at school had felt murky, and for more reasons than his questionable disappearance from her life.

“No.” She shakes her head. “This is weird.”

“Certainly not, Pond. I am the epitome of niceness,” he boasts, stretching his arms out in front of him like he’s ready to greet his royal subjects. Amy laughs.

“Where are we even going? We’ve passed like, plenty of good benches.”

“You know the long stretch with all the benches by Bethesda fountain?”

“Yeah,” she says flatly. “It’s fifteen minutes walk from here.” He grins at her. “You’re kidding.”

“It’s the best part of the park, and I only take the best,” he declares.

“I’ve got to go back to work.” She stops in the path.

“I’ll get you back to work!”

“The second we get there we’ll have to start walking back. It doesn’t even make sense!”

His nose wrinkles, which is completely not-cute, and he smirk-frowns at her, how does he do that with his face? “I don’t believe in sense.”

Amy tenses, not understanding why the idea of breaking the rules to spend time with him frightens her, but also understanding full and well and wanting to purge that convoluted revelation. But she remembers the bowling and late-night library visits and the cake he’d brought her on the morning of her birthday, because ‘cake for breakfast, it’s my greatest invention yet!’, and she remembers a few nights before when they’d danced forever, and it’s Jamie. She’s better with Jamie, she always has been, and that’s what she’s been hoping for, right? To feel better. 

“You’ll get me back in time?” she asks, and they’ve come full circle.  

He remembers, and says, “Back in time for stuff.” She doesn’t look at him but starts down the path toward the fountain.

* * *

 

She and Jamie had their last real conversation before the museum on a night in the February of their senior spring.

Amy wasn’t drunk, and hadn’t been drunk since the fall. She didn’t need the alcohol to feel numb: all it took was the sight of her ring-shackled finger. And she was beginning to understand why sober people had so much trouble enjoying parties, so she sat on the porch staring at the circles of lamplight on the street. She had taken up smoking again and a cigarette hung from her fingers.

Patches came out of the house. She had déjà vu. He stopped when he saw her, smiling too late to hide his dread.

“How are you?” she asked.

“I’m well. How’re you? Where’s Rory?”

Her cheek twitched, too lazy for a smirk. “Asleep, probably.”  He nodded. She took a drag. “Are you leaving?”

“I was going to, yes.”

“Don’t want to stay and catch up?” she half-joked.

His lips parted. “Would you really want that?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. Understanding this as a no, he was halfway across the yard when she called out, “You never asked me.”

She got up and tossed her cigarette to the front walk, stepping down from the porch to stub it out.

“Asked you what?” He was good at that, pretending not to understand. Or maybe he actually didn’t understand. Maybe his self-deception had evolved to where he couldn’t comprehend displeasing information.  In that case she’d have to envy him, and she sort of did.

“Asked me out. You never asked me out, so you’ve got no right to be upset.” Sensing his next question, she added, “About me getting married.”

“On the contrary, Amy, I’m quite happy for you.” He spoke fast and flat. Insincere.

“Then why aren’t you talking to me?”

“I’m talking to you right now.”

She wanted to punch him—he had such a good face for getting punched. “You haven’t spoken to me in four months.” Jamie shook his head, like it wasn’t true, but she had counted every minute of the silence in their friendship. “And don’t think I don’t remember your stupid one friend policy.”

He looked out at the street, sorting his words. She waited; she had become good at this. “What you said to me the first night, when you came to visit,” he began, and then paused.

Amy pursed her lips. “What about it?”

“You told me,” he said, turning to Amy, his finger in her face and a sudden angry wisp on his tongue. “You _told_ me it didn’t make sense.”

“And then I slept in the same bed with you.” Did she love idiocy or was she just unlucky? There’s a question. “And honestly, I thought you’d say, ‘no, Amy, it makes perfect sense,’ and then you’d kiss me and then I’d take your virginity in your childhood bedroom, which is the best place to lose your virginity,” she said grandly. Her vision, shattered on the floor of a Portland mansion.

Jamie had lowered his finger. He was looking at the road again. “You said something just so I’d refute it.”

Amy slumped a little. “I guess.”

“You shouldn’t do that. You’ll confuse somebody,” he said, and when he glanced back at her his eyes were wet. Fuck.

“Listen, I’m not saying we’d have—like, the point is I don’t understand why I can’t be your friend and be getting married.” She wished angrily that he wouldn’t cry in her presence, and she wished even more that she wouldn’t be the cause of the crying.

He sniffed, regaining some composure. “I assumed when Rory said that you’d hated spending your summer apart, you’d hated spending with me, and it didn’t seem like our friendship should continue.”

Jamie wasn’t wrong about Rory’s implication, at least on the level of her almost-ex-boyfriend-now-fiancé believing she’d been miserable every second without him, because he did believe that. But Rory knew shit. “That’s not what that’s about.”

He gave her the tiniest of smiles. “Nevertheless. It isn’t wise.”

Amy’s eyelids grew heavier. He didn’t want to be her friend anymore, it seemed. He was tired. She could hear the resignation in his voice.

“Okay,” she said. “Whatever. See you around, I guess.”

“Goodnight,” he said, leaving.

“Goodnight.”

* * *

 

Amy rarely comes this far into the park, and he was right, it’s beautiful. The autumn day is sunny. The trees twist high above the avenue of benches, clamoring for one another. Amy sits looking up at them while Jamie talks, decidedly more cheerful than that night in some stranger’s front yard. Feeling itchy, she fumbles in her bag for a smoke.

“I don’t remember you doing that,” he says, looking at her cigarettes. He sounds a little offended that she’d dare to slowly poison herself this way, but she fucking loves it, so screw him.

“I’ve got a Spiderman lighter.” She shows him.

“Very cool.”

“I know.”

“Is your coffee good?”

“Yes. Amazing.” It’s just Starbucks dark roast. Nothing special. But she should be making an effort with him, or something. She doesn’t have many friends, and she’d had good times with Jamie, for all the complicated adolescent crap that had come out of it. But concentrating has been harder than ever, lately. She doesn’t understand it. “Did you ever start drinking coffee?” she asks.

“Nah.” He taps his cup. “This is a tea latte. It’s tea with lots of steamed milk, and sweet foam.” Even talking about it delights him, but to Amy a tea latte sounds worse than regular tea, which is really saying something. “Here, have a sip.”

She doesn’t think about how their fingers touch when he hands her the drink. After balancing both cups and her cigarette, she takes a sip, and gags, choking it down. “You can keep that, that’s disgusting,” she says, thrusting the cup into his laughing face.

“Charming as ever,” he says. Is he talking about the tea or her? He _would_ call tea charming. “I never got the chance to tell you that I like your apartment.”

Amy snorts. “Then you’ve got low standards.”

“No, it’s great. It suits you.” This, at least, is somewhat true. When she first moved to New York, she bought a book on low-budge decorating, and the place had a homey if ramshackle vibe. Jeff hated it. She took a long drag.

“Thanks, I guess.” She’s forever terrible at accepting compliments, especially from Jamie, who isn’t supposed to compliment her. “You’re doing that nice thing again, you know.”

“It’s not a thing,” he protests. “It’s me, I’m nice!”

“You,” says Amy, barely able to get it out for laughing. “Are _not_ nice, you’re the worst.”

He sits back, indignant. “No, go on, tell me one mean thing I’ve ever said to you.”

Amy stares at him, her smile suspended. _I’ve decided not to be intimate with you_. She flicks some ash on to the sidewalk. “It’s—nothing specific. It’s just a general aura of you being—being the actual worst person.”

 “An _aura_?” he gasps.

“Now! You’re doing it right now.” Jamie shakes his head. “I’d rather you be the worst than be nice. Nice is—” Her nose wrinkles. “Nice is boring.”

“Well, Amy Pond,” he says, leaning in. “I’d hate to bore you. And besides, you give as good as you get.”

“You should know, since you get most of it.” Jamie laughs and she bites her lip. Their good mood feels fragile, like they might fall into deep awkwardness at any moment. “So, if my apartment’s so nice, where have you been living?”

“We live just across the park, actually,” he says, pointing. “On Fifth Avenue.”

Amy pauses. “You live on Fifth Avenue. On the Upper East Side.” He nods. He probably lives next to senators and CEOs and celebrities. He probably has a maid, or a butler, or both. And a doorman, definitely a doorman in white gloves. With a view of the park. With a view of the Met! “Tell me how much your apartment cost.”

“Oh, no, absolutely—”

“Come _on_ , just tell me, I want to know!” Out of nowhere she’s grinning.

He eyes her for a beat. “Twenty-two million,” he says. Amy gasps so loudly a passing couple glances at them. “But we have a _mortgage_ , that was just the list price.”

She doesn’t really care; she’s draped across the bench, laughing at the trees. “A twenty-two million dollar apartment on the Upper East Side, fuck me.”

“Do you want to see it?”

She sits up. “What, you mean like, now?”

“Yes!” He hops to his feet. “Come over, we’ll make lunch, and we can go to the Met after, it’s just across the street.” Amy tries to find some hint of hesitation in his eyes, but there’s nothing, just fevered delirium.

“But—”

“Oh, _forget_ work!” he says, and she bursts into laughter, because his G-rated attempt to swear is just about the funniest thing she’s heard in a long time. Beaming, he offers her his arm. “Come along, let’s go see something amazing.”   

She stares at him, breathing heavily from her outburst. She’s become somebody who hesitates before playing hooky, somebody who settles for the less beautiful side of the park. The caution feels like a winter coat, snug but cumbersome.

“I’ll go,” she says. “If you do something for me. Say something for me, I mean.”

He mirrors her grin tentatively. “Say what?”

“I want you to say,” she licks her lips, “Fuck work.”

Jamie gapes at her. He looks around, like some passerby might help him out. “Why, Pond!”

“Because.” She settles back against the bench. “I’m not going anywhere until you say it.”

He struggles for a long time: paces, spins, rubs his hands together. Then he sits down next to her and whispers, rather conspiratorially, “Fuck work.”

Amy, giggling, grabs his chin and waggles it before he swats her away.

“Look, Amy Pond, I _swore_ for you.”

She nods. “Let’s get out of here.”

* * *

 

The apartment has a view, and for all her dreaming about said view, the reality is better. She spends the first ten minutes just standing at the window, staring. It’s all there: the park, the Met, the black-brown-grey west Manhattan skyline. The décor is magazine-editorial posh. 

Who the fuck is Jamie? She still doesn’t know. He lives in this place and still wears that ratty jacket. It’s a good thing they had their miscommunication, or whatever you want to call it, way back when. She’d never fit in a home like this, she’d destroy all his beautiful things. His and River’s beautiful things.

“Do you want chicken or tuna salad?” he calls from the kitchen.

“Both.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m hungry.” Amy had recently become an eater of feelings.

“Okay, one chicken and one tuna, coming up.”

She wants to leave. She wants to run out the door and into the handsome elevator and out past the doorman with his frighteningly white gloves. She wants to throw herself in front of a taxi. Whatever; it doesn’t matter. Anywhere but here.

“Live up to your expectations, Pond?” he asks from behind her, and she turns to see him holding two plates. One of them has two sandwiches, and she regrets her somewhat ironic request. Jamie doesn’t deal in irony.

“Thanks.” She accepts the food. “It’s incredible. Your place is incredible, obviously.”

“I’ll give you a tour once we’ve eaten. We’ve got two guest rooms, you know, so you can come stay whenever.” No, she won’t do that. She might be stupid, but she’s not going to go repeating past mistakes. 

“Should we sit—”

“Here is fine!” He plops down on to the sofa and props his boots up on what she’s certain is a priceless antique coffee table. “Miranda hates when I eat in the parlor, but she’ll survive, she’s very hardy.”

“Miranda?” echoes Amy.

“Our maid,” he admits.

“Of course.” She takes a seat on one of the armchairs, which is more like a dining chair she imagines some French king would sit in.

“We’ve got a lot of rooms, is all, and we don’t use most of them, so they get very dusty very quickly.” He rushes to make excuses for his affluence. “And she does our laundry, which I probably couldn’t do if I tried, and the place _came_ with a maid’s room anyway, so of course we had to give it to somebody.”

And a live-in maid, at that. Amy glances around. “Is she here now?”

“No, no, she works part-time for a cleaning service.” He takes an enormous bite of his sandwich.

After she’s finished sandwich one, she asks, “Why did you come to see me today?”

This is a very sudden and straightforward question so she allows him apt time to respond.

“Because…” He sets down his plate. “Well, do I need a reason?”

Amy clears her throat. “I’m just saying, last time we tried to be friends it ended pretty badly.” She has a good view of the door from here. She could make a run for it.

“Amy.” He’s frowning at her. “That was a long time ago. It’s in the past.”

“Right. It’s in the past.” She picks at her chicken. “Do you still have that weird one friend policy?”

He chuckles. “I do.”

“How does that work with River?”

His smile fizzles at the mention of his wife. “What do you mean?”

“Like, does it bother her at all that you basically date another person minus the touchy stuff?” Amy doesn’t feel ready for Jamie’s platonic wooing, not again. He has maybe the worst conception of boundaries ever, bad enough that even her own not-so-great conception of boundaries looks proper in comparison. And she can’t imagine it’s gotten better since he married River, who Amy knows likes a dirty pun or two.

“No, no, don’t worry about that,” he’s saying. “It won’t be a problem with River.”

It. What _is_ ‘it’? Is he planning something? Is he going to start undressing? She watches, but he’s only eating his sandwich. The worst part of it is that she wouldn’t mind. Well, she _would_ mind, being somebody’s mistress, platonic or otherwise. But she might mind platonic more, because at least the other way she’s getting laid on the reg.

“Great,” says Amy, smiling.

* * *

 

At the Met they stand in front of a funny looking hat with flames coming out the top and a scaly gold exterior.

“Is this art?” Amy asks incredulously, after staring at it for some seconds.

“Well,” says Jamie. “Maybe if you wore it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of NYC, yes, they sit on “that bench,” or near it. Apparently (I Googled it) this area is called the Mall, but I’ve never heard it referred to as anything other than the place near Bethesda fountain, and I figured I’d have them be authentic New Yorkers or something.


	8. Pantry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads-up that this will be the only chapter I post this week. My summer classes are wrapping up and I’ve got a ton of work to do, and then I’m moving back home on Friday. 
> 
> Also, yes, the title is a metaphor, which I guess I’ll explain if I have to?
> 
> Hope the slow burn continues not to bore anyone too much. Good things take time. (Have I said that already?)

In her dreams they fuck everywhere.

Usually somewhere in the Fifth Avenue apartment because even Amy’s subconscious can’t conceal her regard for it. They do it in beds (his and River’s? She’s not sure) and on couches and countertops. The shower, obviously, and the bath. She doesn’t actually know if it’s possible to get eaten out underwater, but in dreams anything is possible. Once they do it with her back up against the fabulous view, but his face—what she imagines his face to be—in the midst of the fucking is almost as good if not better than any skyline, even New York’s. The greatest city in the world and she’d still rather watch him have an orgasm.

Of course, she never has an orgasm. Neither does he. They get very close and then she wakes up, wet and empty.

Sometimes he’s an animal and sometimes he’s a darling, often depending on things like missed trains and bad hair days. Weirdly her mood seems to effect Jamie’s behavior in the dreams more than her own, sort of like she’s fucking herself, so maybe she’s just gotten lazy about masturbating lately? Sitting up in bed now, awoken from another almost-climax, she considers rubbing one out but feels unsexy in her pilling extra large t-shirt and relationship-residue boxer shorts. The clock reads 6 PM so her Saturday afternoon nap is overlong, anyway. She tries to think of garbage and old people, stuff to quell her arousal, as she climbs out of bed. But today’s dream marks the first time he’s ever taken her from behind, and she can’t decide if it meant something.

A shower should get rid of the stickiness and once that’s gone the dirty thoughts will follow. Exiting the bedroom, however, she finds Rory standing in the kitchenette. Of all the times she doesn’t want Rory in her kitchenette—generally always—now is especially bad. She hopes blithely that she doesn’t smell.

“What’re you doing?”

“I needed to talk to you.”

Is she groggy and missing something? “Well, I have a—a phone, you know.”

“I called you six times.” He indicates her phone on the counter, since she apparently hadn’t brought it to bed with her. Whoops. “I used my key,” he explains. “Made you dinner when I saw you were sleeping. Might be cold now.” There is indeed a pan heaped with what looks like carbonara on her stove, although she doesn’t remember having the ingredients for carbonara.  
“Thanks.” Amy grabs a fork and carries the pan to the table. “Still sort of creepy, though.”  She eats straight out of the cookery, dishes be damned.

Rory sighs. “I really needed to talk to you.”

“Yeah?” she says through a mouthful.

“This is going to seem short notice,” he begins, and she already feels exhausted by the conversation. “But it’s only because I’ve procrastinated telling you.” He sits across from her, looking even grimmer than usual. Amy narrows her eyes.

“What’s going on?”

“A couple of months ago Jennifer got offered a job in DC.” He twists his wedding ring idly, a nervous tick she’s noticed. “And she took it. We’re moving in six weeks so we can get settled before the baby comes.” His eyes are glued to the napkin holder.

No more Rory. She takes a bite of pasta. “Guess you can’t be my emergency contact anymore.”

He tilts his head up like he’s trying to keep from drowning. This is a kind of funny performance of what their married life might’ve been like, night after night at the dinner table. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

“Oh. I’ll miss you,” she offers perfunctorily. He laughs but he’s not amused.

“I don’t know what I expected.”

“What?” Indignation strikes her, because only she’s allowed to shit on her mediocrity, thanks. “It’s probably a good thing, for you to be away from me, for Jennifer and the kid and everything.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, do you really want to be the dad who didn’t love his baby’s mother because of some girl from college?”

Rory jumps up. The table shakes and Amy nearly loses her meal. “That means a lot coming from you, Amy. Sorry I won’t be around to keep you from ruining yet another marriage.” He doesn’t smile as he’s stomping out. She would’ve expected a little passive aggressive friendliness.  

“Well!” she says. For all the times not to have a comeback—but ruining marriages, ruining _another_ marriage, that pinches a nerve she’s been ignoring—and where does he get off saying that shit to her face— “Fuck off!” she cries dumbly as the front door slams shut behind him.

Amy closes her eyes. Rory is thudding down the stairs outside her apartment.

And then she’s on her feet and throwing the door open.

“Hey,” she shouts from the top of the stairs. “You can’t just leave like that, I never ruined any marriages.” Rory pauses in the landing below with a hand tight on the bannister, his back to her. “ _You_ ruined it with Jennifer because you couldn’t get over me, so shut up! Shut up.” She takes a moment to catch her breath. Blood pounds in her ears. “And I saved at least one marriage, _ours_ , so just shut up!”

He looks at her slowly, severely. “You really have no idea how I feel—”

“Oh, don’t give me your patronizing bullshit, it’s old and I know _everything_.” There’s a flush in her cheeks and she feels excellent, the best she’s felt in ages. “You don’t love me, you’re infatuated, that’s not love. You’ve got no fucking clue what love is, Rory.”

Mrs. Marsh comes out of the first-floor apartment, gets her mail, and goes back in, all while Amy and Rory stare at one another.

“So that’s how we’re going to end it?” he asks. “It’s all a lie to you. Everything that I—that _we_ …”

Her anger subsides a little. She knows Rory well enough to see that he’s better than the past few years of his life might let on. “You better love that kid,” she tells him. He’s shaking his head. She doesn’t even remember when he got to be this way, so caught up in his private tragedies. He’d wanted to be a doctor, at one point. To help people. “Just—be the guy, Rory. Be the nice guy you’ve been pretending to be.”

“And what about us?” _We’re not an us_. The us is in his head, a half-shadow, a copy of a copy he plays on repeat.

“Nice isn’t my thing.” She starts back inside. “But pretending is worse.”

* * *

When their first engagement ended, she told him a little truth to conceal a big one. The big truth was that they were wrong for each other, and she had only said yes to regain the control she lost to Jamie’s unwitting rejection that night in Portland. The little truth was that she had started loving Jamie, somewhere along the line, a fissure love cracking across her heart, unnoticed by her until far too late because the intimacy of it had been dizzying. How convenient would it be if you could step out of your body and see yourself falling for somebody, especially somebody you’d never suspect could have a hold over you? And you could say to yourself, ‘I’m headed in this unfathomable direction and I’d like to make a change,’ and then you’d step back into yourself and walk away. A love accident is not all that different from a car accident: it never ends cleanly and people tend to get hurt. So she was in love with Jamie—she told Rory this, she gave him back his ring. Was, was, was.

* * *

Her apartment is very quiet. After the cathartic joy of saying it all out loud, she’s crashed again. She stands in the room that’s her living room and her kitchen and her dining room, stands there clutching her cellphone and not moving. It has been thirty minutes since Rory left her life and she’s managed to do nothing more than pace around a couple of times. She can’t stop thinking that she’s not the first person in anyone’s world, not anymore. She goes through the address book on her phone and every name has a life attached to it. A good job or a kid or a spouse, somebody or something more important than her.

She calls Jamie anyway. River and the fancy flat and the money and the physics don’t matter when she wants to see him; she’ll try in spite of it all.

After a couple of rings, he chirps, “Pond!”

“Hi. What are you doing?”

“We’re at a party,” he says. _We_. Always with the _we_. She hears the rustle of music and talking on the other line. “At some sort of club, it’s very grand. Though not as grand as the one we went to last weekend. But they do have a chocolate fountain here, which the other one did not. I’m a sucker for a chocolate fountain. Wait, why do you ask?”

She slumps against the door. “No reason. I just—I was just…” This was a stupid idea: he’s got a responsibility to his wife. He’s got fun to have.

“Is everything okay, Amy?”

She should lie. She always lies in response to this question—doesn’t everybody? What are you supposed to say? _Actually, there’s a void in my chest where my fortitude used to be and I don’t want to be alone right now._

“Amy?” he repeats. “Are you all right?” She can almost see his face scrunching with concern.

“I wanted to know if you want to come over.”

“Come over?” he echoes.

“Yeah,” she says. Her throat tightens. “Like, now. Please.”

It’s the word _please_ that convinces him, most likely, since Amy never says please. Ever. “Okay. I’ll be there in an hour, is that all right?”

“Yeah.” When Amy hangs up she remembers a similar phone call they had, on the night she got back from Rome, and she gets a bottle of wine from the cupboard.

* * *

Jamie arrives an hour and fifteen minutes later, which is reasonable coming from uptown. He shouldn’t have promised an hour. She is halfway through the wine.

He wears a three-piece suit that’s a little big in the jacket, but he hangs it from the coatrack.

After she lets him in she goes back to sit on the sofa with her wine and he follows, settling beside her.

“So,” he says. She pulls her knees to her chest and tugs a blanket around herself, not offering him any. “Pond?”

She’s too tired to spend the first ten minutes of this conversation pretending nothing’s wrong, even though that’s her standard procedure. “Rory’s moving to DC.”

He nods. “Are you upset?”

“No. I’m thrilled.” This is the confusing bit, the thing that’s messing with her. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t seem thrilled,” he offers, setting his head against the sofa. He appears younger, looking up at her, smiling his weird sad playful smile.

“I should be thrilled, I guess. I haven’t been sleeping well.” Something in her unclenches at Jamie’s presence. She’s relaxed. “It’s hard to be thrilled about anything.”

“Why aren’t you sleeping well?”

“Weird dreams,” she says, unthinking.

“About what?”

Whoops.

Amy opens her mouth, searching for an appropriate lie before she starts to blush. “You know. Weird stuff.”

“There’s a whole school of psychologists who study dreams and their symbols, you ought to look into it.” Thankfully, Jamie is much better at hearing distress in her voice than he is at hearing embarrassment. “You could find out what they mean, it might help you understand what’s going on.”

“Oh, no,” says Amy, stifling a laugh. “I think I know exactly what they mean.” Dream Jamie is a vague male entity whose identity she simply understands, but he does maintain some of the original’s defining physical traits, namely his dash of dark brown neck moles, which she can see well at this angle. Maybe Jamie represents an unrealized sexual goal for her and her attraction is actually a desire for self-fulfillment. Or maybe his Easter-Island-statue beauty is objectively unique and mysteriously compelling and everyone sees him this way. He did get River, after all. If you had told Amy two months ago that River had a husband, she would’ve imagined Harrison Ford circa _Indiana Jones_ , not a dorky physicist with bad fashion sense.

“When did they start?” he asks gently. “The dreams.”

“A few weeks ago.” She rubs her eyes, and her fingers come away smudged with eyeliner. “And then I started taking naps on days I was home, you know, and then I’m asleep all afternoon and I can’t sleep at night. And when I do I get woken up by the dreams.” Deject, Amy gulps some wine.

“A few weeks ago.” Jamie sits up, his face changed. “When we started seeing each other again?”

She looks at him sharply. “No.” His expression reeks of guilt, and she feels a pang of it herself. “Well, technically yes, but it’s not about you. Not everything’s about you,” she says, trying to turn it into a joke, ironic in this case since everything is actually about him.

He gives her a little smile.  “Of course not. This is about you, Amy.”

Funny how it always takes another person’s input for Amy to realize which problems are exclusively hers. The same thing had happened with Jamie a long time ago, but that time Mels had been the one to say it. The realization sends her into a terrible self-awareness, makes her want to stare in the mirror and take no visitors until she figures out what’s wrong with herself and fixes it, because she won’t have other people seeing flaws in her that she doesn’t see first.

“Probably. I don’t know,” she sighs.

“Have you considered talking to someone about it?”

“I’m talking to you about it.” Which is no small deal, if he didn’t realize.

“I know. And that’s important.” He takes one of her hands, his palm warm against hers. “But I meant someone who knows more about these things. An expert.”

“A shrink?” she asks flatly.

“Yeah. Or some kind of counselor, anybody with a degree, really—”

Her belly contracts. “I’m not crazy.”

“I know that.”

“Good, because I’m not.” She wants to smack him. They’re just fucking sex dreams, everyone has them, they’re probably not even as big of a deal as she’s making them out to be and _she wants to smack him_. “I’m fine.”

“Fine isn’t happy.” That knocks the wind out of her. “It’s very—” Jamie struggles, maybe having sensed her anger. He lets go of her hand and pulls away, beginning to examine the remotes on her coffee table. “It’s difficult to see you unhappy, Amy. I think it would be beneficial if you could make—even one visit might help to clear your head a little, if the problem—”

“I’ve never had a problem I couldn’t handle on my own.” Psychiatry is just suckers tattling on the universe, getting cheated out of their money. “Therapy is expensive and I’ve never needed it before, so I’m fine.”

He sets down a remote and turns to her, lips pursed. “And if I can’t be here the next time you need someone to talk to?”

“I didn’t need to talk to you,” she says harshly. “I was just bored, that’s all.”

The look he gives her does all the pleading for him. It’s pathetic. “And what if you wanted to say something I couldn’t hear?”

Amy gulps. What she wouldn’t give for a peek inside his head right now, a clue about what he knows. “I’d say it anyway.”

He nods like this is exactly what he expected her to say. Infuriating. “Well. If you’d like to reconsider, I’m sure there’s a way around the financial problem.” She pictures herself sitting on a chaise lounge and waxing eloquent to some unseen figure, who occasionally pipes up to ask her about her father. It’s all very Freudian, and ridiculous, and she feels like he’s making fun of her.     

“Can’t believe you think _I’m_ crazy when you’re the one who left your wife at a party to go to Brooklyn at like seven o’clock at night.”

Jamie tenses, still not facing her, and she’s clearly hit a nerve. “It was fine,” he mutters.

“Fine isn’t happy,” she mocks.

“Amelia.” He gives her a look that’s split between reproach and injury, like he’s simultaneously crying and reproving her for daring to make him cry. But he doesn’t actually cry—she’s losing her edge. Which is just as well, since tonight is supposed to be _her_ sob fest.

“Right, sorry for daring to suggest that your perfect rich person marriage to your hot wife isn’t happy,” she spits. The injury-reproach look intensifies exponentially, and she glances down, sheepish. “Okay, actually sorry for that one.” Real cruelty toward Jamie feels misplaced.

He takes her by the elbows and looks her squarely in the eye. “No relationship is perfect. And if it were, it would be boring. Don’t strive for that, Amy, or you’ll never enjoy what you do have.” She gets the sense he’s saying this as much for himself as he is for her, which gives her an inkling that she might’ve been on to something when she questioned his and River’s happiness. But, she decides, she wants them to be happy. Because if he’s an unhappy husband, what does that make Amy? Their faces are too close: she’s getting ideas about make out sessions. If she could peek inside his head, she realizes, he’d be able to peek inside hers, and he’d know about the taken-from-behind dream she’d been having about him not three hours ago, so maybe telepathy wasn’t going to be her power of choice.

“Well, I won’t strive for perfect.” She gives him a small smile. “But I plan on getting pretty close.” Jamie’s expression doesn’t change, as if he won’t hear her on this point. “You should stay over,” she says, ducking under his arm so it drapes around her shoulders and she can press into him. “We’ll watch something,” by which she means they’ll watch something until they’re reminded of a more engaging topic, and they’ll spend the rest of the movie discussing whatever.   

“You’re difficult to say no to.” Amy assumes this is his convoluted yes. She reaches for the remote, switches on the television,and starts channel searching. “River and I…” she hears him say, his chest rumbling against her cheek.

“Yeah?” she asks, though she doesn’t want to hear the rest of the sentence. She glances up at him and he smiles broadly at her.

“We’re happy.”

She looks back to the TV. _Roseanne_ is on. “Glad to hear it.”

* * *

 

Jamie shows up at her office on Monday morning. The sight of him standing in the doorway with two cups and a big grin has become commonplace for Amy. Maybe something she accepts _too_ readily. But today he doesn’t have their drinks.

“I brought you something,” he says, leaning against the desk. He seems—subdued. She eyes him.

“Where’s my coffee?”

“This is better than coffee.”

“False, there’s nothing better than coffee.”

He laughs, then pulls a business card out of his jacket pocket and hands it to her.

It reads: _Martha Jones, M.D. Psychiatrist._

When she looks up at him, he’s got that pleading face on again.

“She’s an old friend. She said she’d do it for free.”

“I’ll think about it,” Amy says, and tosses the card into her drawer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you’re wondering, no, there are no psychiatrists who are going to treat a patient for free. I’ll let you guess what happened there. Also, I’m trying to keep this a mainly Eleventh era fic so Martha’s presence won’t be huge, but I wanted another female character in the picture since I’ve retired Mels for the time being, and (spoiler alert) I love Martha.


	9. Play

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Martha yet, but soon. This chapter is for Laura who is seventeen tomorrow!! (good job Lausa you've truly made it)

Amy reads the memo twice, but her name doesn’t appear on the roster of employees chosen for River’s Italy trip. Amy had been, she thought, a shoo-in for the team: she’d put in more hours on Pompeii than everyone except Dr. Song herself. But it relieves her, too. The idea of spending four months side-by-side with the wife of the man she dreams about fucking had been intimidating, to say the least.

She closes out of her email, the fizzy electric light of her computer screen scratching at her eyes. She feels Lewis’s gaze on her, but when she turns around, he’s staring at the wall. He’s been catty lately. Not, you know, out right, because he doesn’t talk, but he’s giving her the look. Judgmental.

She needs a break, just to process the memo business, so she heads to the bathroom to hide out. River’s departure means Jamie’s time will free up. It means he’ll be around more, _even_ more, as if he didn’t devote a ton of hours to Amy already. He’s started eating into her work time with his barrage of visitations; it’s possible that the extended absences lost her the Pompeii gig, and if that’s true she doesn’t know what to think, except that the prospect of even more time with him makes her nervous. She doesn’t have much faith in her self-control.

After she’s wasted a good ten minutes contemplating the dinosaur drawing etched into the stall partition, the door creaks open and two unidentifiable but familiar female voices enter.

“I _am_ excited about it,” says one woman. “But four months away from New York!”

Oh, great. This is just the conversation she wants to overhear.

“Didn’t you apply?” asks the second woman.

“Yes, but I thought I’d figured out everyone that was getting picked.” The voices, as far as Amy can tell, enter the stalls on either side of her so that they’re talking over her head. “I was sure Pond would get that spot.”

 _Groan_.

“Right, well, you know why she didn’t.” The second woman sounds secretive. Fuck, she’s back in high school. Not even college, _high school_.

“Oh, I’m sure Dr. Song’s got her reasons.”

“Her _reasons_? It’s her husband. He’s infatuated with her.” Her heart stops.

“With Dr. Song?” asks the first woman, puzzled.

“No, no, with _Amy_.” Amy clamps a hand over her mouth, swallowing her gasp.

“So why would she want her here when she’s gone, that doesn’t—”

“No, the husband is clingy. He used to come here everyday with lunch for her.”

“Oh my God.”

“But now he comes for Pond,” giggles the second woman, clearly the gossiper. Beverly, maybe? But Beverly’s older. “And he takes her out to do things during work hours all the time.” Amy flushes the toilet furiously, and goes to wash her hands, the stall door banging on her way out.

“She’s getting paid to entertain the husband. That’s awful.” No, it’s worse than awful. It’s horrifying. Her cheeks are red in the mirror above the sink. One of the women flushes, and then the other. Her jaw’s so tense it starts to ache.

“It’s great, if you ask me,” says Gossip. “I’d kill to have someone do my pillow talk for me.” She emerges from the stall, then catches Amy staring at her in the mirror. Cassandra from Acquisitions.

“What?” asks the first woman at her friend’s silence. She exits and sees Amy too. Penny. The least competent of the research assistants. Both the women stand frozen, gaping at Amy, like they’re waiting for her to spit hellfire and leave them both crispy.

She dries her hands and beams at the pair. “Have a good afternoon, girls,” she says on her way out.

* * *

Lewis. It must have been Lewis, the tattler. She’d known he was up to something.

* * *

Infatuated.

Jamie is infatuated with her.

That summer in Portland he’d looked at her a lot of ways, with a lot of sentiments, but not once would she have called it infatuation. It wasn’t sickly or heady in the way of that word.

Infatuated is Rory’s designation and she reserves it for him. But as the youth drains from Jamie’s face, his expressions are less dynamic, less revealing, rubbery, more difficult to read. She doesn’t see infatuated, but she sees very little.

Portland: one day they’d climbed some mountain—she can’t recall which—and at the top he stood behind her, just talking and talking, some things never change, and he’d brushed his hands over her bare arms as if he might transmit some excess energy to her through the contact. Initially he’d been trying to point out a feature in the valley below them but Amy had leaned back against his chest and then he couldn’t, wouldn’t stop fingering the goosebumps he raised on her skin, his nose nestled in her hair, his breath poking at stray strands as he mumbled on about glaciers, about pedicabs, about springtime.

She’d been turning around to kiss him when a family of hikers charged into the clearing, their squeaking children smeared with trail mix chocolate, breaking her and Jamie apart.

But she still has the feeling of his face pressed into her hair, his breath on the skin behind her ear, all guarded by her memory. His hands. Infatuated.

* * *

“I don’t know what that means,” she tells him, as they sit back-to-back, atop one of the rocky scrapes—left by the glaciers—that dapple the park. It has been three days since she overheard Cassandra and Penny, and she’s determinedly willed away remembering their conversation, especially in Jamie’s presence.

“It’s perfectly clear,” he insists.

“Is it?”

She feels him shake his head. “ _Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven_ ,” he reads. “Yes, that’s rather simple, Pond.”

Amy rolls her eyes even though he can’t witness her disdain. “You going to explain it or not?”

“I’m almost certain if you just _thought_ about it, you could—”

“Don’t want to, I’m lazy, just tell me.”

Jamie sighs. “It means often we—we are often capable of solving the problems that we wait for fate to take care of.” His voice softens. “It’s an excellent notion. I really don’t put it half as well as him.”

She thinks he did just fine. “Keep reading.”

“ _The fated sky gives us free scope_ —so, we have free will— _only doth backward pull our slow designs when we ourselves are dull_. That’s a little harder. Our plans… will only go awry if we’ve planned them foolishly.” She peeks over her shoulder and his brow is furrowed. “I think.”

“Only fools fall in,” Amy sings.

“ _What power is it which mounts my love so high,_ ” he reads, voice crackling. “ _That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?_ That’s—that’s…”

“I got that one.” She ignores the anxious twinge of her stomach.

“Really? What does it mean, then, Pond?” he asks, not sounding quite himself.

“She’s asking who made my love—like, the person I love—who made me notice him and then made it so I couldn’t have him.” Amy clears her throat and starts getting a cigarette. “She’s talking about that Bertram guy.”

“That’s right,” he says, pleased.

She lights her smoke. “I don’t know why she likes him, he’s a dick. They must’ve gotten a hot actor or something.” Jamie laughs.

“You’re not the first person to make that observation about Bertram. Shall I continue?”

“Sure.”

“ _The mightiest space in fortune nature brings to join like likes and kiss like native things._ ” He pauses. Amy doesn’t get that one at all, but it sounds pretty good. “I think it means that nature… gives fortune the power to bring people who are meant to be together, together.”

She gulps. “I don’t even get your version of it.”

“It’s difficult.” He continues, “ _Impossible be strange attempts to those that weigh their pains in sense and do suppose what hath been cannot be._ Those who are too cautious about striving for unusual goals, and who don’t think miracles that have happened can happen again, those people will never be able to do amazing things. What a great idea, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” she says, smiling faintly.

“ _Who ever strove to show her merit, that did miss her love?_ No one has ever failed to win her love who really tried to show her… merit.”

 “Huh.” There’s something unnervingly optimistic about that sensibility. She doesn’t like it.

“More?”

“No. Does she get him in the end? Bertram.” She takes a long drag.

“You want me to tell you how it ends?” he asks incredulously.

“Yeah, if I know how it ends I don’t need to read the whole thing. It’s _All’s Well That Ends Well_.”

He chuckles, and scoots around to face her. “If you must know, yes, she does. But it’s not all that simple. Their marriage seems completely insincere. That’s why they call it a problem comedy.”

“Nothing’s simple,” Amy points out. Jamie shrugs. “Hey, speaking of how things end.” She bites her lip. He’s looking out across the sunny, buzzing park. “I was wondering.”

“Yes?”

“When’d you finally lose your virginity?” It has nothing to do with anything, her wanting to ask. She’s been wondering for two months now, ever since they’d reunited, is all. Totally normal.

He turns to her slowly, shocked, like they might be arrested for indecent conversation in a public place. “Pond.”

If he gives her the aunt voice, she swears— “Yeah?”

His manners must break down because he’s battling a smile. “You are very forthright.”

“One of my many great attributes.” He’s obviously just avoiding the question and Amy nudges his arm. “Come on.”

“I was twenty-three,” he says, fiddling with the battered corners of the play in his hands.

“Who was she?”

“Well, she was brilliant and beautiful.” He grins. “She was so brilliant and beautiful that when she came back into my life a few years later, I asked her to marry me.”

The realization opens up slowly, a wound in her chest. “You lost it to River.” He nods. “Have you ever even _been_ with anyone else?”

Blushing, Jamie looks down, a boy again. “Not—only if you count, you know, what we—”

“That doesn’t count,” she says, maybe more harshly than necessary, but she’s not sure if she believes it and she doesn’t want to rehash that experience, now of all times. “So if you didn’t see her for years, did you just, _not_ do it?”

He’s still not looking at her. “Sex means something different to everyone, Amy.” He’s starting saying the word ‘sex’ out loud.

“But like—you have needs, everybody does, how did you not go _crazy_ —”

“Enough about that,” he says with determined cheer.

“Three months for me and I feel like I’m going to murder somebody,” she mutters. Jamie must pretend not to hear, but they’re sitting close enough he can’t have missed it. “That’s kind of cute, I guess. That your wife is the only woman you’ve ever been with.”

He smiles, but this gesture is also determined, like it’s in spite of something. “I like it that way.”

“So what, did you just get down on one knee the next time you saw her because she taught you that much about sex?” She’s hilarious. She’s hilarious even when there’s nothing funny or cute about Jamie and River’s marriage. She can’t think of anything they do as classifiably cute. She can’t think of anything they do: she’s only seen glimpses of their interactions, but it’s always one or the other, River at work and Jamie at play. They’ve never even invited her over for dinner. Maybe they think it’d end badly. Maybe they’re right.

“No,” he laughs, the edge of discomfort in his voice. “We saw each other for a year before. But it was a great proposal. I planned…” She glances up and he’s peering over at her with an odd expression. She’s trying to hide her dismay at having to hear the story of his proposal to River, but it must backfire, because he smiles briefly and wraps it up, “I planned a whole thing. And it worked.”

“Obviously,” she says, attempting her usual humor. Had he really brought her lunch everyday? He probably thought they were soulmates. He probably _believes_ in soulmates.

“Obviously,” he repeats, going back to his reading.

* * *

River asks to speak with her, and closes the door once they’re alone. Her office is about as well tailored as her suit, which is very.

“Amy,” she says. “Have a seat.”

Amy can’t decide if she wants this to be about Pompeii or not. She’s been debating the issue for ten minutes, ever since River’s petite blonde assistant appeared in the doorway of her office.

“I have a proposal for you,” River begins, leaning back against her desk. She has a languorous way of speaking, devilishly coquettish. Perhaps Jamie and her flirt well, perhaps that’s something they do together. Amy should start a running list of possibilities.

“Okay.”

“You get along well with James. He enjoys your company, and you enjoy his, I think?”

“Yep,” Amy says, flatly so as not to betray her awkwardness.

“As you know, I’ll be away for four months, beginning in a few weeks.”

“Yep.”

“Now, assuming he’s told you about our arrangement—”

“Your arrangement?”

River’s eyebrows arch elegantly, as befits her. “Yes.” Amy shakes her head, not understanding. “When we’re separated for long periods of time, James and I take lovers.”

Amy does a figurative spit-take. Her stomach is on the floor. Her head is somewhere else. “Take lovers,” she echoes. _Who fucking says that?_

“If we didn’t, we’d be starved of one another’s company, and after a time we’d inevitably end up resentful.” River explains the—arrangement—with honest nonchalance, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “This is the healthy approach, believe me. And I was going to suggest that you sublet that little place of yours and move into the apartment while I’m away.”

“Take lovers?” echoes Amy again. It clicks, everything River has told her about lovers and apartments. “ _Me_?” Infatuated. “You think—I’m—me and Jamie, we’re—”

River assesses her, still smiling. “He really hasn’t told you anything, has he?”

“ _No_.” Or rather, _fuck no_.

River takes a long moment to consider, presumably, her husband’s discretion. “Well. Now you know there’s no shame in your feelings.”

“Nope,” Amy coughs. “No shame. Not in my feelings.”

“It’s a short and lovely commute from the apartment, and clearly you’ll have more responsibilities here with such a large portion of the staff being on the dig.” River moves around the desk to take a seat in her stuffed leather chair, like something out of _Wall Street_. “And Miranda has started going to visit her granddaughter on the weekends, so the whole place is rather too big for just James, I think. He’s prone to restlessness enough as is.”

“I’d like to start from the beginning,” says Amy. The rhythm and calmness of River’s voice has lulled her to a cautiously level head.  “You want me to move into your place for four months while you’re in Italy so I can be Jamie’s—James, your husband—so I can be his live-in mistress and also… work more hours.”

River squints, searching for missed content. “Yes, that’s correct.”

Amy gives her a big smile. “Your marriage is very unusual.”

“I think that’s quite a good thing, considering what’s usual for marriages is ending in divorce. If you make arrangements for a car to move your things, we’ll gladly pay for it.”

“Uh.” There’s no question mark, no request, and there really ought to be when there’s so many things wrong here Amy doesn’t even know where to begin: an open marriage, her participation in said open marriage, Jamie _lying_ about having never been with anyone but River. It’s not a can of worms, it’s a fucking twelve pack.

“I’m sure we both have work to do,” says River gently, and Amy hops to her feet.

“Absolutely. I’ll see you. Sorry, thanks. No, not sorry.” River smiles. “Just thanks. Nothing to apologize for!” She must be blushing. She’s probably been blushing the whole time. “Bye.”    

When she gets back to her desk, Jamie is sitting at it, grinning, which doesn’t last.

* * *

“I don’t understand why you’re _dragging_ me!” Jamie shouts. People in the park are staring at them.

“We need to get to your apartment so we can have a conversation in _private_!”

“What is so important that you can’t just say it now?” He struggles wildly against her grip, looking even more noodley than normal. She’d gotten him out of the museum and into the park but barely, maybe a hundred feet, before he’d stopped them here, in front of a gelato stand whose attendant watches them, gaping.

“I promise you.” Amy pulls him close by the arm of his jacket. “You don’t want all these people hearing what I have to say.”

“It’s fine, Pond!”

Fine. _Fine_. Nothing’s fine. “All right, you want this?” She lets go of him and he checks himself ostentatiously.

“Thank you,” he huffs.

“River called me into her office to tell me that if I’m going to be your mistress—” Jamie freezes in the midst of a cuff-check. “—I might as well come live in the apartment while she’s gone.”

He turns his gaze to her slowly, delaying the building-sized awkwardness of their situation. “She told you that?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah.” Amy stands there with her arm crossed and her hip jutting out to one side and the wind getting her hair all in her face and she stares him down. “Few things. One, what the fuck is up with your marriage. Two, are you lying to me or River about how many people you’ve slept with. Three, I’m not your mistress, and I’m not going to be, so just wipe it from your brain, you raggedy idiot.”   

Jamie looks out across the park with his mouth hanging open, stricken by the culminating problems he’s worked so diligently to bury. “Amy,” he says hopelessly. “I lied to her.”

Her chest swells a little with this small, inappropriate victory over his wife. “You lied to River?” The gelato attendant sneezes and Amy shoots him a glare.

“She needs to be with someone,” Jamie says, his eyes fluttering closed. “When she’s abroad. And I can’t be there. And I want her to be happy, it’s useless if she’s made to feel bad about it, so I said I’d allow it if it went both ways, and now—and now she thinks I do that. Have a person when she’s gone.”

“Oh.” Amy feels a little embarrassed that the atrocity is, in truth, an act of self-sacrificial devotion. She pictures Jamie showing up at River’s office with sandwiches in brown paper bags.

He rubs his eyes, still turned away from her, not wanting her to see him struggle.  “I apologize for getting you dragged into it.” This is potentially the most sincere apology she’s ever gotten from him about anything, and her cheeks are warm.

“No, it’s—I didn’t know you were just, you know. Making it work.”

Two people walk up to buy gelato from the stand, so she and Jamie shift to the side, having lost the attention of the attendant and the people scattered nearby.

“I’ll talk to her soon. Tell her the truth,” he says.

“No.”

Jamie frowns at her. She’d be frowning at her, too.

“I just mean.” Amy clears her throat. “If it’s working for you guys, then you can tell her whatever you need to about us.”

He smiles slightly, not quite believing, and then broader once Amy mirrors the expression. “Really, Pond?”

“Really. Though,” she winces, “I may have accidentally agreed to move in with you for four months. I didn’t really know how to say no.”

Jamie perks up, inches taller at prospective cohabitation. “You should!”

“What?”

“Come stay with me.” He takes her hand. Yes, she’ll make a very good… pretend mistress. “You love the apartment, and it’s closer to work, and River expects it anyway, so why not?” Jamie’s grin is like all his other grins: wide, invasive, winning. “We’d be roommates. Well, not _room_ mates. You’d have your own room and bathroom and everything. But apartmentmates! It’ll be the most convincing fake romance in history,” he declares.

Amy knows this is bad. She knows that any kind of close quarters with Jamie isn’t going to improve her dreams, that she should be spending less time around him if anything, that four months is far too long. She doesn’t need a shrink to tell her these things.

But all she can think about is the color of the sky over Manhattan seen from that huge window, the buildings craning upward, the park awash in fall colors. Their sheets probably have a thread count in the billions.

“Yeah,” she says. “Of course I’ll move in with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahahahaha.


	10. Problem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently every fifth chapter will be a Jamie chapter. Enjoy.

“It’s a two-year process,” Jamie says. “If we start now we’ll be done by the time the conservation project is over.”

River tucks a little silky nightgown into her suitcase. He stares at the open bag, an abyss of tiled colors. “It’s a two-year process to get on the _waitlist_ , sweetie. You don’t know how long it’ll be before something becomes available.”

“All the more reason to apply now!”

“All the more reason you can wait another six months,” she says, touching his cheek.

Jamie flops back on to the bed and away from the contact. “I hate waiting.”

“People aren’t going to stop having babies they don’t want.” She starts sifting through her closet. “Waiting is good for you. It gives you time to think about what a responsibility it is to have a child.”

“I know what a responsibility it is.” He’s gotten to know every dip and incline of their bedroom’s crown-molded ceiling.

“You do?”

She sounds unconvinced, hmph. It’s not that hard to understand. You’re caring for another little person, he gets it, he’s not completely delusional.  “If we get a baby three years from now, you’ll be in your seventies when she’s in her twenties.” She’s silent and he thinks this may have been an ill-advised comment, but his jaw stiffens, avoiding apology.

Finally, as if he hasn’t said a thing, she asks, “Are you excited for Amy?”

“I’m excited to spend time with her.” Amy is not a commodity, not a person he gets to _have_ for four months like a toy. Amy is not like the men River will see, and while he wants to inform her of the difference, he fears that caring about the third person violates the rules of their arrangement.

“Will you miss me?” She’s flirting now.

“Will you miss _me_?” He doesn’t try to hide his question under coyness, since the answer very well could be no, and that’s note cute, though she won’t say as much—he’s learned this about her. Never take River’s flirtations at face value.

“Of course,” she purrs, and comes to stand over him, hands on his thighs, smile on her lips. “How are you going to say goodbye to me?”

“Goodbye,” he replies, with calculated indifference, looking her straight in the eye. He doesn’t know how to be married to someone who isn’t there. Marriage demands intimacy, and if he’s wrong about that, he doesn’t know what marriage is.

She retracts her touch and returns to packing, the irritation in her voice as angry as she ever gets with him. “Don’t be a child, James.”

“Don’t treat me like one.” He turns over and presses his face into the mattress. Her footsteps fade as she exits to the hall. She takes a taxi to the airport.

* * *

Amy looks nice in the morning. Why does this surprise him?

Perhaps it’s more disconcerting than surprising. Yes, that’s right. He expects nothing less but it still grieves him, to see her looking nice in the morning.

She shows up in the kitchen in the morning, usually in a baggy t-shirt and what might be men’s underwear, less often in a wash-worn nightgown. He thinks he remembers that nightgown, remembers its pinstripes against his bedspread, but he can’t be sure.

She is still ginger in the morning. Often her bed head endears him as much as any hairstyle could, apricot and dawn mussed and pinched up in the back.

She still has freckles in the morning, though they’re fading as fall progresses into winter. He can’t count them without seeming inappropriate. He shouldn’t want to count them at all, but quantifying is the habit of his scientific mind. She doesn’t wear much make-up during the day, so her face is not all that different before she’s dressed and ready.

She sips her coffee the same way in the morning as every afternoon he’s brought her a cup. Her wrists remain unbelievably slender, like a doll’s, holding her mug. She’s been enjoying River’s espresso machine.

For the first time in two years and three four-month expeditions, he does not feel his wife’s absence keenly. The void she left is filled, albeit with a very different woman. It is delightfully domestic. They cook meals and go to plays and he teaches her chess. They spend weekends making an adventure of the city, museums and bookstores and clothing stores and whatever wacky cultural thing is happening in the park. He doesn’t need to see her at work because he sees her at home, but he goes anyway, for the lunch breaks. Trying to be funny, he holds her hand when they walk into the apartment building so the doorman will see. He thinks the doorman tells River everything, and it’s for River, all of it.

December arrives.

“This is the best time of year in New York,” he muses loudly.

“It’s freezing,” says Amy, pulling her coat together as they traverse 78th Street.

“But it’s magical! It’s Christmas time. There are lights and trees and everyone’s kinder.”

Amy smirks. “You _would_ love Christmas.”

“Of course I love Christmas. Everybody loves Christmas!” Amy tosses him what is clearly, definitely a look. Even he can see it, this time. So what could she— “Amelia Pond, _do you not like Christmas_?”

“I don’t _not_ like Christmas. I like the presents. And the food.” They pause at a street corner. Today is the coldest it’s been, and their exhales fog around their noses.

“Then you’ve never had a real Christmas,” he declares. He recognizes his relative ignorance but ignores the recognition, too. Exaggeration suits him and Amy’s well aware. “Christmas brings people together. It’s the best time of year.”

“You’ve said that.” She sounds annoyed but he spots her smiling.

“Are you going to be in the city for it?” She doesn’t talk much about her aunt in Kansas, and he wonders if they spend holidays together. She claimed to have worked through Thanksgiving last week and he didn’t question her, but he’s never heard of the museum asking anyone to work through a vacation.  

“I’m not going anywhere, so yeah, I guess.”

“So you’ll be with me! Chris and David are coming to visit, it’ll be fun.” A snow flurry catches in Amy’s hair while she’s smirking at him, pretending not to care when he knows she does because it’s Christmas and everybody loves Christmas, even Amy, he’ll show her.  “Come to get the tree with me.”

They get the tree; they decorate it; he puts his macaroni star on top. Amy eyes him.

“What is that?” she asks, as he hops down from the ladder.

“A star!”

“It looks like a five-year-old made it. Like, a five-year-old named Jamie.” She has probably noticed his underdeveloped signature at the bottom of the paper backing.

He gives her a big smile. “I made it for my dad.”

Her mouth hangs open slightly. “Oh,” she says. He would tell her he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter, but even the brief explanation is more time than he wants to devote to the subject.

He comes behind her and cradles her elbows, so they can look at the tree together. “What do you think?”

Amy laughs and her shoulders shake. “I think you’re ridiculous.”

“Is it too much?”

The tree is massive, at least six or seven feet at the widest part, and even with the high ceilings it brushes the top. Every branch—and really _every_ branch, at least the load-bearing ones—carries some kind of ornament, many of them garish souvenirs from places he’s visited or crafts made by the children at the after school program where he volunteers or pieces from River’s more artistic collection. He’s swaddled the tree in lights, too, five strings, each of a different color (blue, red, green, purple, and white), and garlands of popcorn, paper and beads, and a twenty-pack of candy canes hanging variously. It is an eyesore, but a magnificent eyesore.

“It’s… I think this _defines_ too much,” Amy replies.

“Perfect!” he chimes, and kisses her cheek.   

As with past Christmases, he likes to sit by the tree while he’s reading papers or drinking tea. It makes him feel zen, sort of, like he’s in some kitschy painting you’d find in the pages of a catalogue selling gourmet non-perishables, kettle corn and cinnamon sticks and whatnot. Often he visits the bakery and gets two cups of the best hot cocoa on the Upper East Side, and then Amy joins him by the tree, wearing a garish holiday sweater (“Not because I like it, because it’s _warm_ ”) over her pajamas.

Tonight Amy’s not waiting for him so he sets her drink in the kitchen and has just settled on the sofa when she stomps in like her mind has vacated the apartment entirely. With her red-rimmed eyes and her runny cheeks, she clutches her cellphone to her chest. She doesn’t even see him at first, and then she shakes her head, trying to jostle herself back into sync.

“Hey,” she manages.

Yes, her eyes are very red. “Is there something wrong?”

“No.” She sucks in a breath and smiles poorly. “Rory’s wife had her baby. Their baby.”

“You don’t seem all right.” He stands and steps toward her. She’s shaking.

“I am. I shouldn’t be upset. It’s really fine.” Her voice cracks and she swallows a sob, and she turns away from him. Jamie’s heart lurches in his chest.  

“Amy.” He reaches out but she recoils from his hand, shielding her face.

“Don’t,” she says quietly, and disappears to her room.

For a while Jamie stands outside with his face pressed against the door, not speaking.

He comes when she calls. He finds her a doctor. He gives her the apartment, the view. But she won’t smile and she won’t go to the doctor and she’s crying now and the only thing he has left to offer is himself, and how is _he_ supposed to make her happy? He’s been trying and trying.

It _would_ be Amy, to make him desperate like this, impotent, inadequate. No one has ever confused him so adeptly.

He knocks before he knows what he will say.

“Just go away, Jamie,” comes her distorted reply. He palms the doorknob.

“Please, Amelia.”

“Leave me alone.”

“I just want to know if there’s anything I can do.” _Please, something. Please be better._

Silence, then, “Come in.”

She’s sitting on the end of the bed with a rumpled tissue in her fist. He sits beside her.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.”

“I’m sorry you’re feeling bad.”

“Yeah.” She laughs dryly, half-sobbing. The noise claws at him.

What looks like a perfume bottle rests on her dresser. “I don’t want you to feel bad.” He can’t smell any perfume on her. “I’ve been—I’ve been trying very hard—everything I can, to help—”

“I know,” she says, cutting off his stammers.

“Do you want to talk about Rory?” he asks. He does not want to talk about Rory. Jamie doesn’t hate people, by his own estimation, and he especially doesn’t hate people he barely knows. But Rory always shows up at the crime scenes when something Jamie loves is dead, so he’s been classically conditioned.  

“Oh,” she sighs loudly. “There’s nothing to say. Nothing new. It’s really dumb.”

“It’s not,” he protests, though he doesn’t know what it is. “You never told me what happened.”

“We got engaged and then broke up. And then a few years later we got engaged again, and then we broke up. Again.” She rubs her eyes on the back of her hands, leaving them streaked with charcoal make-up.

“That’s—well, that’s not really what I mean. I mean, _why_.” The perfume bottle has eights sides. An octagon.

Amy looks at him with her brows scrunched together and her lip on her teeth. Has he asked the wrong question? She looks and looks. She says, finally, “My heart wasn’t in it.” He nods, not knowing how else to respond. “I thought it would be better when I was older. That I’d be more ready.”

“And you weren’t?” An octagon is a strange shape for a perfume bottle.

“Can you _be_ ready to marry somebody who isn’t right for you?” It’s a good question but not one he takes pleasure in considering. She slumps over, chin on her fist. “Maybe I should’ve just sucked it up. Nobody’s going to be totally right.”

“Well,” he says. “I think you get a feeling that they’re close enough.”

Amy grins, but her amusement is self-effacing. “I didn’t get that.” She licks her lips. “I guess you did.” Sure. He must have. But it wasn’t like lightening; he didn’t wake up to find the feeling sitting on his nightstand. It grew up at the bottom of a drawer, he’s sure it did, and if he looked he knows he’d find it. He just doesn’t want to look, not now.

“I’m worried about you, Pond.” Amy’s hand is on his arm. “If there’s anything, something I missed.” He looks at her and she’s very close. Should he kiss her? Would she smile or cry? He doesn’t want to make matters worse.

Amy brings their foreheads together. He should tense up, but the touch relaxes him, her breath tickling his nose. She says nothing.

“Please don’t cry anymore, Amy,” he tries. At some point he started running a hand up and down her arm, which may reassure him more than it reassures her, but the gesture is visceral and there’s no stopping it. “Or do, cry if you need to, but please tell me why you’re crying so I can fix it.” He lowers his voice. “I’ll fight whoever did this, tell them to met me at the flag pole after ninth period.” When Amy laughs, her nose nudges his.

“You’re an idiot,” she says, and kisses him.

It’s a quick kiss, like she thinks it needs to be fleeting, but she drags her mouth away in an effort to prolong it.

He’s missing something, something big. But he can’t remember how to remember or how to speak. A thought has escaped him, maybe driven away by the ideas about kissing Amy swarming his brain. His hands are still on her forearm. She watches him and bites her lip. “You taste like chocolate.”

“I got us hot cocoa. Yours is in the kitchen.”

“It can wait,” she says, and leans in.

He kisses her this time, but it’s just his mouth against hers, he can’t part his lips, and he’s sure he’s trembling, so his power of movement has abandoned him here in this pivotal moment when he’s got yet-another maybe-last chance not to mess this up, to kiss Amy Pond properly. But Amy, he’s so thankful for Amy, who pushes back his hair and strokes his jaw, and relaxing, he opens his mouth so she can really kiss him. Despite his chastity he’s been kissed by a decent number of people, he has one of those faces, you know, but no one—and he wishes he’d realized this seven years ago—no one kisses like Amy. She is an artist. She leads him through the machinations of her tongue and teeth, her confidence is a safety net for him of the shaky hands, and gripping the hem of her shirt he forgets his worst days and his crutch of activity, now a pinball in her machine, free and powerless. She pushes his jacket from his shoulders, toys with the collar of his shirt. Somewhere on some other temporal plane, where he’s capable of panicking, the phone rings.

They kiss through the first two rings, until war cry trilling and the vibration of the receiver against its dock jostle him from reverie. He pulls away and there is Amy looking terrified, and her terror scares him too, since he’d seen this coming, since he’d considered that to kiss her might only aggravate the problem, and oh god, he was right, he was stupidly right. The sight of her distress in such candid color reminds him of a documentary he once saw where they showed photographs of car accidents to the drunk drivers who caused them, except now he’s the driver, and he wants to run away.

So he gets up and answers the phone. River tells him about a procedure they’re developing to slow the erosion of the ruins. From here he’s standing in the hall, he can see Amy sitting on the bed with her head in her hands. Before he hangs up he says, “love you too,” a force of habit, and Amy shuts the door.

* * *

When he comes into the kitchen the next morning, Amy smiles at him, the most genuine smile he’s seen on her in a while. She tells him she put the cocoa from last night in her coffee to make a mocha, gets him to smell it, laughs when he wrinkles his nose. The incident sets a trend for the next few days, and then the week, a trend of not kissing and not talking about previous kissing and not thinking about kissing not even for one second, not even in the dissident night while he anxiously awaits sleep and writhes and kicks all the covers off the bed, not even then, McCrimmon, because _you’re not that guy_ , though the abundance of _not_ between them makes his head hurt, and then it’s Christmas Eve Eve and he gets another, very different phone call.

After he hangs up he goes into the library, where Amy beams falsely at him, a blanket curled around her feet and a mug of something hot between her palms. Her face falls when she sees him.

“What’s wrong?”

Jamie opens his mouth to speak, but he can only think how terrible he must look if she reads the catastrophe in his features. “My mom,” he says.

She shakes her head, puzzled. “Is she okay?”

“She had a stroke and crashed her car. She’s gone, she’s passed away.” He grips the phone with both hands and it crushes lines into his skin. “Will you come to Portland for Christmas?”

* * *

 At their graduation Amy wore a white dress. If they’d said more than three words to each other that day, Jamie would’ve teased her about it. How many white dresses did she have, he hopes she’s saved one for the wedding, it’s like she’s marrying her future! Tying the knot with a life minus their friendship, which was okay, which was for the best, he knew. But he kept glancing over at her and Rory, smiling and holding hands, with their parents and everyone stopping to look at the ring, even though that was sort of odd since they’d already been engaged for nine months and how could anyone spend nine months looking at a ring? A ring was just a band of metal, an ornament of affection, a mocking symbol of commoditized love. Jamie didn’t want to see the ring for a second. He resolved he would never get married. He resolved that love was not jewelry.

“Congratulations. Good luck,” he told her at the refreshments table.

“You too,” she said, and walked off with her lemonade.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Anne giveth and the Anne taketh away.


	11. Parent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What happens in Portland doesn’t actually stay in Portland, and you should be glad.

He insists on going to bed immediately. Amy’s experience with grief tells her that this is normal behavior, so she doesn’t stop him.

She chews her lip in the shower, thinking about Jamie and sadness, not knowing what she’ll do or say. It’s difficult to imagine him taking it anything less than well, because he’s got such a propensity for joy and she’s never really seen it crack? It must not be healthy or easy to stay happy in this situation, but if anyone could manage, it’d be Jamie. She stops the water and towels off, wiping a clear spot in the clouded mirror. A couple of weeks ago she had been the only catastrophic mess in the apartment.

Her saving grace over the past month has been their private, room-adjacent bathrooms—no nudity “incidents,” or at least none related to bathing/shower, and the nudity that one time had been only potential, anyway, though that hasn’t stopped her from thinking about it, the incident of potential nudity, particularly when she’s, you know, _solo_. That fantasy is the only good thing to come of what happened, hence her stalwart denial. She figures Jamie’s too overcome with good-husband guilt to miss it or want to discuss it, though it bothers her she’d be concerned with his feelings in the first place. Said compassion feels contrary to her declared policy of use-‘em-and-lose-‘em, never mind that he’s sort of her best friend. Life would be easier if he weren’t her best friend.

When she emerges from the bathroom in nothing but a towel, he’s there in her bed, a fact that would probably be more sitcom romantic if his mother hadn’t just died. He looks terrible, eyes raw and swollen, sallow with grief. He smashes his face into her pillow.

“Hi,” she says breathlessly. He doesn’t respond, just whimpers. “Give me a second.” She grabs her nightie from the drawer and dives back into the bathroom, changing speedily though she’s not entirely dry. The nightgown sticks to her in places and her hair bleeds a wet spot across her back, but never mind. She returns and crawls under the blankets with him; at once, he curls against her, his cheek on her belly. She strokes his hair back from his face and, after a few minutes, feels the wetness on her fingers that means he’s begun to cry.

He’s a quiet crier, she finds. Just little pulsing sobs, as if even in this moment of absolute pain he didn’t want to let go entirely. He cries for a long time, hours maybe, she’s not sure because he’s so damn quiet about it.

She hates it. Him, crying. She tries to vacate the room mentally so she won’t have to witness it. Her stroking gets so rhythmic she nods off, until she’s startled by a convulsion when he strangles out another silent sob. Finally she passes out for good, the small devastated noises unceasing.

When she wakes that morning he’s wrapped around her arm, sleeping, distress fled from his face. She thinks about kissing him, and kicks herself, and then continues to think about kissing him, and then remembers that he’d taste like salt and just wants to lie there and enjoy his tranquility for as long as it lasts. And it’s not as if there’s anywhere she could go, with him clinging to her even out of consciousness.

He stirs a few minutes later, sees her, and smiles. It’s incredible until she watches him remember how he got where he is. A greyness washes over his face and blots out his smile. “Good morning,” he says, sitting up, away from Amy.

“Morning,” she says weakly.

“Thanks.” For what, being a human tissue? She probably could’ve done better, she didn’t even say anything. He stares at the comforter. “I’ll go cook breakfast.”

“Are you sure?” She’s spent the past eight hours playing caregiver and it doesn’t seem like that should end any time soon. “I could do it. Why don’t you start packing?”

“I want to do it.” He hurls himself out of bed, blank-faced, and starts for the kitchen.

She gets her computer and starts working to get the plane tickets for that afternoon. She pauses when she spots the price tag: $1600 for two round-trip tickets to Portland. $800 for just hers. Grimacing, she finds him in the kitchen.

He’s working quietly over the stove, making a large omelet. She pauses at the kitchen island. “Hey, can I… I’m getting the plane tickets, and your ticket is eight-hundred.”

“Right,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at her. “My wallet’s in the nightstand drawer. Left side of the bed. The blue card.” Maybe the most concise he’s ever been. “And I’m paying for your ticket as well.”

She’s started to leave but hesitates now. “You don’t have to.”

“I do.” Having finished cooking, he turns and starts dishing the food on to plates, flashing her a smile. “You didn’t know her. You’re coming for me. It’s only fair.”

Amy nods slowly. “Sure. Thank you.”

In the bedroom, she opens the drawer and discovers not only the wallet but a half-depleted jar of lube, which she stares at for far too long. The main question is _his_ or _theirs_ , either answer bringing different upsets. Entirely flustered, she takes the card and runs back to her computer.

Over breakfast he says nothing. In the cab to the airport he says nothing. In the security line and while they’re munching overpriced premade sandwiches before boarding and through the whole flight, he utters maybe ten words. The journey is sparsely populated with bedraggled business people and the odd family thinking Christmas Eve travel would be cheaper. It’s like being an alternate reality. By the time they’ve got their rental car and are on the road in Portland, she’d kill for even the worst of his sermons on string theory or organic produce, anything to set her back on track. She’d listen to him talk about River, if that’s what he needs to talk about. But she doesn’t want to force it—the minute he started crying last night, she swore selflessness. It’s the least she can do after his well-intentioned if unsuccessful endeavors to improve her situation. Their devotion will be mutual. Because, you know, _friendship_. With Portland scrawled outside her window, she sighs. There are tracts of snow on the ground.

“Amy,” he says, and she starts, having become engrossed in the silence. “May I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure.” She hopes it’s a long question. His voice comforts her. He’s gripping the steering wheel violently, white-knuckled.

“Would you…” he begins, and bites his lip. His eyes lock on the road. “Would you mind staying with me while we’re here? Like last night. Staying in my room.” Amy feels her mouth hanging open, but no words are coming out. He’s asking to sleep with her, but not sleep with her? For over a week? “I just don’t want to sleep alone,” he mumbles. This takes platonic mistress to an extreme. Does he think that since they’ve already made out sharing a bed won’t be problematic? Like the tension will just be gone. No, she’s stupid, he’s probably not thinking about her at all. He misses River, he needs another body beside him.

“Of course,” she says, swallowing her doubts. Selfless.

* * *

 

“Amy,” says Chris, sounding surprised. She’s dragging her suitcase into the same foyer she did years ago, and wishing it could make her feel twenty-one again. “Jamie didn’t say you’d be here.”

“Yeah.” She peeks out the front door; Jamie has wandered down the driveway to stare at some holly bushes. “He’s a little scatter-brained right now. Sorry for your loss.” He nods once, clearly not keen to discuss it. “Can’t believe you remember me.”

“You’re not easy to forget.” She smiles. “I didn’t even know you two were still in touch.”

“We weren’t until September, actually. I work for River and we ran into each other.”

Chris laughs shortly, almost a chortle. “He’s enjoyed that, I’m sure.” Amy hopes she doesn’t turn red. He grabs her bag and starts for the stairs. “I’ll put this in one of the guest rooms for you.”

Good, now she’s got to explain. “Actually.” Chris pauses and assesses her quizzically. He’s even more haggard than she remembers, probably age and the circumstances. “Could you put it in Jamie’s room?” She meets his eye and attempts nonchalance.

Jamie’s brother is the furthest thing from his likeness physically, but they get the same blank expression while processing difficult information, and they snap out of it into manufactured cheer with the same resilience. “No problem.”

She wanders into the kitchen, a little startled by how well she remembers this house, and how perfectly quirky it is, gauche but endearing. She peeks out the window, where the evergreens prick the setting sun. A weight settles on the center of her chest. What will they do at the museum without her? It’s a miracle she had the personal days for a trip like this.

“Is that Amy Pond?”

She swings around and there’s David, with his small features not so different from before. A short pretty blonde woman trails behind him. David remembers Amy with the same eerie specialness as Chris, and she has to wonder how exactly they felt about her visit with Jamie way back when. He introduces the blonde as his girlfriend, Rose. Amy engages in some grade-A chitchat with the couple until Jamie arrives, beaming falsely. Everyone seems to be holding together pretty well. They discuss Christmas dinner. The funeral doesn’t come up.

* * *

 

That night, she gets out of the bath and Jamie’s not in the room. She lies on the bed for a moment and reexamines the space, which has hardly changed since she was last here. The glow-in-the-dark star chart shines a hazy green above her head. Amy sits up, the frustration she felt the last time she was here surging through her, renewed. Perturbed and thirsty anyway, she heads downstairs, and toward the voices in the kitchen.

And then someone’s voice says, “A woman who’s not your wife.” She halts, panicked. “To our mother’s funeral.” David.

“It’s not like that,” Jamie says, definitely Jamie, she’d know him anywhere. She should really go back upstairs. “She’s here to support me, we’re friends.”

Amy tiptoes up to the kitchen archway and ducks to the side, where she can hear but not see. “So what, you’re sleeping together but you’re not _sleeping_ together.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Jamie sounds unusually confrontational.

“Seems likely.”

“And how does Amy feel about that?” asks a third voice, Chris. It’s quiet and she can picture Jamie flailing. Pained, she slips around the corner and trots into the kitchen smiling wide.

“Hey guys.” The three of them tense simultaneously, with varying degrees of discomfort. “Can I have some water?”

“’Course,” says David, but Chris has already gotten a glass and pulled the pitcher from the fridge.

“Thanks.” She grips the drink and turns to Jamie. “When are you coming up?”

“In a few.” He stares at her with strange seriousness. She nods and leaves the three of them to continue bickering, having become the official queen of interrupting people talking about her behind her back.

Jamie comes back to the room, pulls his pajamas from his suitcase and enters the bathroom, returning minutes later in his usual, boyish matching set. The double bed is so small she can smell the peppermint toothpaste on his breath. He seems nervous, keeping his eye-line trained methodically on anywhere but her.

“They were bound to have an opinion about it,” she says, flipping a page in her book.

He sighs, probably because she’s confirmed his fear that she overheard. “They were. They had some more opinions to share after you left.” He clears his throat and starts to remove his watch. “They seem to think not much has changed between us since the last time you were here.”

“They’ve barely seen us together,” she mutters.

“Well, maybe they think what it was like the first time was—” Jamie struggles with the watch clasp. His frustration practically pulses around him. Gently, she takes his wrists and unfastens it for him. He sets it on the nightstand. “They think what went on that summer was something you don’t get past.”

“Yeah?”

“As if any kind of love were that enduring. Even our parents die.”

Of course that’s what this is about. Probably Chris and David’s complaints, too.

“River and I want a baby, you know,” he continues. She won’t cry, but that doesn’t weaken her desire to do so. Jamie sits up and forward in the bed, glaring out at the room.  “Now I don’t know. Is it even worth it if our baby has to go through this, someday? River doesn’t even want it, she’s never wanted kids, she’s just humoring me. Is that what love is? Is that fair?”

“Please stop,” she says hoarsely.

Jamie pauses and turns around, anger dissipating at the sight of her distress. He scoots closer to her. “I’m sorry, Pond. Have I upset you?”

“It’s fine.” He’s more normal now than he’s been in two days. She missed him. “You’re just depressing me, is all,” she says, nudging his arm with enough humor to get a small smile. “Things weren’t good with your mom, right?”

Jamie takes a deep breath and holds her hand in both of his. “How do you always know these things, Pond?”

She grins. “I know you.”

“And you’re not modest about it,” he says, mirroring her pleasure. Her chest swells pleasantly. “There were things I should’ve said to her. Things I should’ve done.”

“Hey. What do we say?” Amy asks.

He bites his lip. “It’s in the past.”

“Yeah. It’s in the past.” This might be the first time they’ve ever used this phrase that she wants it to be true. The clock flashes 12:00 AM. “Merry Christmas,” she says, and pecks him on the lips.

Brief panic. He’s looking stricken.

“Imaginary mistletoe,” she chokes out.

After an excruciating set of seconds, Jamie manages loudly, “Kissing is pretty harmless, don’t you think?” Amy nods vigorously, her hand still in his. He kisses her, now, a very sweet kiss. Her body has deliquesced. “Goodnight,” he says afterwards. It takes her longer than usual to fall asleep when he’s got his arm around her.

* * *

 

The kissing explodes. It does not stop.

They make out for ten minutes on Christmas morning, bad breath and all. No bodily contact: no breast action, no over-the-pants action, no action except lip action. The noises he makes when she does something creative with her tongue are almost worth the extra effort just-kissing takes.

She gives him his Christmas present in front of Chris and David and Rose, and he holds it up in front of him. “A t-shirt?” he asks, amused.

“I figured you might want to try them, they’re like a brand new fashion thing,” she says, and everyone except Jamie laughs heartily. Rose high-fives her for the excellent burn.

“ _The Ramones_ ,” Jamie reads. “Who’re they?”

“I thought you might not know, so there’s an album in there too. And a kazoo,” she says, grinning. When he finds the little plastic instrument, he chuckles and makes a great racket with it.

“Enough,” cries David, still laughing. “Give Amy your present already.”

Jamie’s mouth hangs open. “I’m going to give it to her later.”

“That’s fine,” says Amy nicely. Jamie doesn’t seem to notice the look his brothers exchange.

They kiss by the tree—less elaborate than the one back in New York, by far—once everyone’s gone, and again in bed that night. Just kissing. Nothing else. She considers writing “I will not touch his dick” on her arm in permanent marker, as a self-reminder, but he’d likely notice. It’s all very high school.

The funeral is the 26th. Despite Jamie’s protests she refuses to sit in the pew with the family, and settles by herself in the last row instead. Chris’s eulogy talks about glass ceilings and his mother’s success and she wonders if she’s the weakest woman Jamie knows, job-wise. Life-wise.

They kiss that night, too, or rather she kisses him, because it’s much like the night he found out about the death and he cries so long and hard that his eyes are still caked and swollen when he wakes up the next morning.  

On the third day, in their heavy winter coats, they go to a deserted park with this small frozen pond and sit on the nearest bench. She rests her head on his shoulder.

“Why do you want kids so much?” she asks, after he’s been quiet too long. The prospect of children, her own actual children, has always terrified her. She worries they’ll be like her and she wouldn’t wish her life on anybody, let alone someone she loves.

His lips twitch. She’s familiar with them now, an odd idea. “I don’t know. They’re fun. They keep you young. Why, do you not want them?” There’s a note of fear in his voice, and she resists the urge to sit up and slap him. Okay, well, she doesn’t _resist_ it. She tries to summon it but it’s not there. Yes, it’s stupid and dangerous for him to talk about their thing—just a thing, not even a relationship, just their weird just-kissing commitment—it’s dangerous for him to talk about them like they have a future. But she likes how solid he is against her cheek and the sight of his ragged cloudy breath curling above her. Her enjoyment of him outweighs her caution, in this insistence and in most insistences thus far.

“No, I just. I don’t think children would really want me,” she jokes, but he doesn’t laugh.

“No,” he says, touching his head to hers. “I think you’d do great. A great mother. Very cool, all kids want cool parents.”

“Yeah, sure.” She starts for a cigarette, moving away from him. “When am I getting my present, by the way? You’re two days overdue now.” He raises an eyebrow suggestively and pats his coat pocket. “No! Give it here,” she cries, thoughts of smoking abandoned for the time being.

“Nah-uh! What do you say, Pond?”

“Are we really going to do this?”

 “Yes, absolutely.”

With a significant eye roll, she says, “ _Please_.”

He hands her a blue envelope, wider than a card but not much taller. She turns it over and sees the lettering _US Air_. A heat rushes over her and she pulls out the tickets.

Roundtrip to Paris leaving on December 29th, returning January 5th.

Her hands are shaking.

“The reason it took me so long was because I had to move the dates around. We were originally leaving on the 26th.”

Two tickets. And he had to change them last minute.

“Do you like it? Amy?”

Four thousand dollars, at the least, in her hands.

“You and me, in Paris for New Years. I think it’ll be fun, and good, and distracting, you know…”

_She got him a t-shirt_.

Amy looks up at him slowly, slack-jawed, her throat dry. “I got you a t-shirt.”

A smile flickers over his lips. “I loved your present.”

“I don’t really think I can accept this,” she says, but she doesn’t hand him back the tickets. It’s _Paris_. With _Jamie_. No matter how confused and wrong the gift is, she shakes with her desire for it.

“But you’ve always wanted to go!” He presses the envelop toward her and his bare hands are warm, somehow. “It’s the least I can do after everything you’ve done for me lately.”

Completely at a loss for words, she shoves her mouth against his and they kiss long, hard, inappropriate for a public park but there’s no one around so she doesn’t care. When she pulls away his lips are swollen and he’s glowing. The happiest she’s seen him in days. Panting, giddy, she grins at him and says, “Let’s go to Paris.”

* * *

 

Their make out that night is particularly impassioned, despite its usual lack of non-lip action. (Though she realizes he touches her hair plenty, the sneaky little bastard.) She starts thinking about Paris, starts thinking about the Seine and the architecture and the hotel room. The hotel room they’ll probably share. Every time they’ve ended up in one of these sessions over the past few days, she’s felt a dullish, forgettable ache between her legs, but this thought—of a week in bed together in the world’s most romantic city—sends a terrible rush of arousal through her. She pulls away from Jamie, gasping.

“What?” he asks, concerned.

“Fuck.” Cringing, she falls back on to the pillow, resisting the need to stick her hands down her underwear.

“What’s the matter?”

This is a bad time for a chat, she guesses. Really anytime is a bad time for a chat because she’s not ready to let go of this strangeness they’ve developed, all the parts of a relationship without the sex. And as much as she requires this missing element, she’s likely not going to get it, and she’ll lose all the elements that aren’t missing—handholding and dinner dates and just-kissing—and she’ll be missing those elements too. Something is better than nothing but that’s difficult to remember when what you don’t have is sex. Jamie doesn’t get the sex thing, she’s sure that’s what’s going on, and though she can’t explain how a person could fail to understand her desire, she accepts his naivety, because he’s Jamie and he’s sweet and he tries. But sometimes he needs shit spelled out for him in big block letters.

“We need to talk,” she tells him, and sits up. He mirrors her, toying nervously with his lower lip, a gesture not at all beneficial to her aching. “So if we’re going to go to Paris.”

“We are!”

“Okay, well.” There should be a way to say this gently, delicately, to broach the subject with class. But Amy can’t think of said way, and after a brief struggle with word choice, she says rather plainly, “I can’t be in a sexless relationship.”

 Jamie peers vacantly at her. “A sexless relationship.”

“Yes. That’s what we’re in.” Wide-eyed, confronted with reality, Jamie shakes his head. “ _Yes_ , Jamie. All the stuff in New York and now the bed thing and the kissing. That’s just dating minus sex.”

“Nah!” His denial is determined, he makes a show of shrugging it off.

“You know what? I won’t even try to convince you.” She pats his cheek and he eyes her, still disconcerted. “But I want the whole package or it’s done. Which is fine, I’ll just move into the guest bedroom like a normal person. Your choice.” Her offer on the table, she sits back and watches him.

He grapples with the decision for a while, glancing back and forth between Amy and his lap. “Would you really want that?”

“To sleep with you? I’ve wanted to sleep with you for almost ten years now. A decade of wanting to sleep with you, Jamie.”

He smiles sadly. “Would it make you happy?”

Would it make _her_ happy? His mother is two days in the ground and she’s forcing him to make a call like this. Her selfless week, great. She winces. “You know what? Never mind. I can hold out for a while, I’m sorry I asked.”

“I think it would make me happy,” he says, with terror in his voice. “I don’t know, Amy.” She feels her own breathing in her chest: unsteady, excited.

“I mean. You have River’s permission.” She puts a hand on his knee, to comfort him, but also because her heart has begun to race.

“I have her permission to have sex.” He looks straight at her when he says this, and she deftly ignores the suggestion.

“So it’s going to make you happy, and it’s going to make me really, really happy.”

He palms her cheek; a lock of her hair falls across the back of his hand. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait until Paris? It’ll be more special.”

Her first instinct is to say that she doesn’t need it to be special, she doesn’t give a damn about special because it’s _just-sex_ , like the kissing was just-kissing, and Jamie of all people needs to remember this. But of course, she actually does want it to be special, a precious little inkling hidden in the bottom of her chest, if only because she’s waited so long. And maybe for some other reasons, too. “I think it’d be most special right here, actually, don’t you?” Better late than never.  

Jamie glances up at the painted sky. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve reached the point in this story where the most unpredictable thing I can do is something predictable; huzzah.


	12. Pressure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut warning. Like, half a chapter of smut warning. If it ain’t your thing you can skip to a little over halfway through, the first section break, and just read the last little bit of dialogue there. My first attempt at writing full-fledged smut, so go easy on me.

Amy tosses the last of her clothes from her suitcase. “This isn’t happening,” she says, half to herself.

“Did you check your purse?” asks Jamie from the bed. He seems to be keeping a level head; she can’t imagine how.

“I got rid of the ones in my purse.” After Jeff she’d sworn off men, which apparently meant disposing of all her contraceptives other than birth control. “I could have sworn there were some in with my travel stuff. Besides, what’re _you_ doing, what kind of guy doesn’t keep a condom in his wallet?” she asks, flopping on to the bed beside him.

“The married kind.” She has to remind herself that his wife _set them up_ to do this.

“We could.” She hesitates. “I mean, I’m on the pill. We could just—”

Jamie straightens, suddenly stony-faced. “Absolutely not, Pond.”

“Fine,” she groans. “But come up with a better option.”

“I’m going to go check the other bathroom.” He gets up but pauses in the doorway and clears his throat. “We have plenty of options.” It takes her a second to realize what he means because his voice is flush with shy reluctance, but ultimately this delivery makes the suggestion hotter. Like, a billion times hotter.

“Maybe we should start there,” she calls as he disappears. He returns some minutes later, condom in hand. “Result!” she cries.

“I had to look through the drawer for one that wasn’t expired,” he says, and she takes a moment to pity the men of this house. Jamie sets the condom on the nightstand and stands awkwardly looking down at her.

“You could take your clothes off,” she suggests, since her vantage of him would be improved this way, but he makes a soft noise of protest. Amy sighs. “Okay, come on, lie down.” He joins her beneath the covers. “Second thoughts?”

“Maybe.”

“Don’t.” She undoes the first few buttons on his pajama top. “Did you think about this at all? Between last time and now.”

“In school, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

He looks away briefly, maybe embarrassed. “Once or twice.”

“So all the time.” He laughs, and his discomfort dissipates slightly. She kisses him and, for the first time in an excruciating three days, doesn’t hesitate to slip her hand beneath the elastic of his underwear and grasp him with authoritative gentleness. He squeaks into her mouth and pulls away, pressing his face into her neck. His cheeks are warm with blush.

“Just making sure everything’s in order,” she says. She runs her thumb over the tip and pecks the top of his head. “Exceeds expectations.”

“Amy.” He props himself up to look at her, his expression fraught, but she can’t tell if he’s loving or hating it. Regardless, she retracts her hand, because they’ve got other business to tend to.

As a homage, as an in-joke, she throws a leg over him and pulls herself up so she’s straddling him. “Are you nostalgic yet?”

“Amy,” he says again, this time with a little admonishing smugness, eyes narrowing. “Things have changed.”

She snorts. “Not that much.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. What, are you going to _take me_?”

Amy’s full on sarcastic in this moment, and she expects to get a kiss out of the provocation at least, and a good hard one, hopefully. She doesn’t expect, however, to be hoisted by the thighs and deposited on her back, with him above her on all fours, grinning. “You want to bet on that, Pond?” he asks, and they start to laugh, and his hands are sliding under her nightgown, finding her panties, tugging them down her legs.

“Minus two for not using your teeth,” she tells him. Jamie makes a small noise, maybe of amusement, maybe of dissatisfaction. While she works on getting him topless, he starts to push her nightie up her body, but pauses with it bundled at her waist. She tosses his shirt down the bed, not noticing his change of pace until he grips her thighs, and then he does something she really, _really_ doesn’t expect: he ducks his head between her legs.

Amy’s stomach drops. He’s hovering there, waiting for her permission, his lips pink and swollen and smooth, looking utterly capable, and she spreads her legs as wide as she can because _thank you, Santa._

She shudders at the first touch of his tongue, and then he starts exploring, hesitant, and she gets a little worried. Eating out is an art and a science, a real skill. It’s not just lapping, and she’s been in this situation enough to know that most guys are ignorant in regards to this fact. And then Jamie’s strokes grow stronger, more purposeful. He circles her clit and her breath catches in her throat, and he moves lower and dips inside, but backs off.

He’s _playing_ with her, she realizes, the tease. Building her up. When she glances down at the brown mop working dutifully between her legs, she can almost feel his smirk, and she runs her fingers through his hair as some sort of penance. The heat begins to shift in her body as her climax nears, goaded by him, and he must sense it because he returns to her clit with serious intentions.

He’s right; things have changed. Because the man who’s down on her right now isn’t the one she nearly banged seven years ago. The man who’s down on her right now knows exactly how to handle a clitoris. Like an expert, refined, _studious_ knowledge. He rolls it between his lips and presses down gently, and Amy gasps urgently. She writhes as her composure slips away and he presses his hand firmly to her hip, keeping her still enough for him to continue, the pads of his fingers exceptionally cool against the skin of her pelvic bone. He takes her into his mouth, finally, idiot, and sucks, a gesture that throws her furiously into orgasm, and she bites her lip to keep from screaming but the low strangled sound still comes out, if barely, ripped from her lungs by the tearing white heat of coming. Her hands fist decadently into the sheets as he sucks and sucks and sucks.

It fades and he stops, with a final lick and kiss to her inner thigh. She’s loose and empty and achingly ready, a feeling confirmed by the fabric increasingly stretched across his crotch. “Do they teach that at Columbia?” Amy mumbles, her head heavy on the pillow. With a look of absolute delight, he licks his lips showily. “That’s disgusting,” she says, laughing, largely in an effort to prevent his winning any more arousal from her.

Jamie wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and she stifles a groan. “You taste good,” he says simply, as if he were admitting his love for bacon cheeseburgers, or something equally uninspired. It’s a line—she knows it’s a line, he’s been coached to say it, she’s well aware—and it’s sexy anyway. And the grin on his face as he’s tasting her on himself, _that_ ’s definitely not fake.

With a hand on the back of his neck, she drags their mouths together. She fumbles at his pants, while he fumbles at the condom on the nightstand, their lips unfocused. Soon they’re ready, and with her legs wrapped around his waist, he slides in. She sighs, full, light-headed, and Jamie lets out the smallest whimper of pleasure, like he’s surprised to find her around him. Maybe it’s the five month dry spell, or maybe it’s Jamie and anticipation, but she thinks another person has never filled her this perfectly before, and it’s funny to know how complex and different and flawed their bodies are, all rivets and grooves that ought not to be there, and yet they fit together like they were cut for one another with a jeweler’s precision, or the way factories make puzzle pieces.

Jamie wriggles slightly, letting her feel him, and it’s good, he feels good; she raises her hips to meet the movement. He presses his nose against the skin between her ear and her jaw, his breath down her neck in billows. Idly, waiting, Amy traces his spine as far as she can reach, presses the frequently-coveted moles along his neck. The grandfather clock in the hall ticks loudly enough that she can hear it.

And he does nothing.

“Jamie,” she growls in his ear.

“Yes, Pond?” When did being called her last name become a turn-on? He brushes his lips against her jaw, and she shivers. “Can I help you?”

Oh, this again. Bastard. Thinks he’s so sexy. Well—yes, yes, he is sexy, and this whole act is sexy, so never mind. “ _Get on with it_.”

He laughs softly, raising himself to look at her, a grin lighting his face. Nearly singsong, he says, “Gotcha.”

He thrusts up inside her, really deeply this time, the muscles in his neck and shoulders bowing with the effort. Her arms loop naturally around him, and she breathes to steady herself as he starts to move, not so invigorated as that first stroke but confident and impassioned. Their foreheads knock lightly and she giggles and he kisses her hard, slowing to a solid, robust pace, and then faster again. Amy lets herself be fucked, blissfully and totally fucked, because she feels like she’s spent a lot of her time getting other people off and it’s _goddamn nice_ to be brimming with Jamie, whose interest in sex comprises nothing more than his fuming desire to pleasure her until she has a thousand million screaming orgasms—or at least that’s what she gathers from the way he’s going at her right now.    

When she grows tighter, close, Jamie’s at her neck again, muttering to himself in little staccato huffs, and after a moment of closer listening she discovers he’s just repeating her name, the syllables warped and scattered but recognizable. _Amy Amy Amy_ : she thinks she’s smiling. He proves himself better at reading her body’s nearness to climax than he is at reading any of her facial expressions on a usual day, as he reaches down to rub her in time with his thrusts. A kind of evil orgasm genius, she thinks, but he presses her clit and she spins out over the edge and she can’t think anymore. He thrusts through her climax, or tries to: one particularly devastating wave makes her arch her neck upward and flat-out moan and, maybe at the sight and sound of this, he comes, with a shout and an expression that’s nothing short of angelic. When she’s done he falls against her, panting, both of them rubber. He’s soft by the time he rolls off her.   

“Not bad,” she murmurs, draping an arm across his chest. The sweat cools on her skin. Jamie says her name a few more times, his eyes half-lidded, and she’s not sure if he heard her.

He returns to the present after a while, and he snugs against her and she against him.

“Can I tell you a secret?” he whispers.

Amy’s grinning. “Okay.”

“I think you have pretty hair.” She laughs quietly into his shoulder and he burrows into it, her hair, which she guesses smells nasty in a kind of delicious pheromoney way. “Have I impressed you yet, Amy Pond?”

She presses her ear to his chest. “I am, maybe, slightly, like the tiniest bit—impressed.”

“Well, I don’t need much,” he murmurs, smiling.

Soon he’s asleep and still hers, arms and legs and the smooth white plane of his chest in the dark room. It’s good, and she’s happy, it’s the happiest she’s ever been probably, _he’s_ the happiest she’s ever been, and she loves him.

She loves him. She’s in love with him.

Outside it’s begun to snow. She doesn’t sleep well that night.

* * *

 

He’s not in the room when she wakes up, which gives her time to shower and pack her bag in relative peace.

She finds everyone in the kitchen. Jamie buries his nose in the paper the second he sees her, probably to hide the color in his cheeks.

“Coffee, Amy?” ask Chris, carafe in hand.

“I’m all right.” Maybe the first time she’s ever turned down coffee in her life. “Jamie,” she says. He glances up at her. “Can I talk to you?”

David clucks reprovingly at his brother as Amy drags them through the dining room and into the library.

“Is everything okay?” he asks when they’re alone. He touches her arms in much the same way he would have a week ago, which reminds her how dangerously intimate this relationship has always been, even if it took sex for her to realize.

“No, actually.” Jamie’s eyes widen. “I’m leaving.” Her voice betrays a hint of distress, despite her best efforts.

“Leaving,” he echoes.

“Yes. I’m going to back to New York.”

“We’re going to Paris tomorrow,” he says slowly, as though this were an inarguable fact.

“Can I have the keys to the rental car?”

“Paris tomorrow, Amy.” He’s still holding her arms, barely listening.

“I can’t go to Paris with you.”

Jamie lets go of her, and she moves away from him, unsettled by the way his body trembles. He’ll understand soon enough—River will come home and they’ll get their baby and he’ll understand. Right now, however, she knows all he can see is her leaving him again, and maybe he thinks she’s used him for sex and you know what? She’s fine with that. Let him believe he means nothing to her; it’s better than handing him the truth.

“I can’t do any of this anymore,” she adds, when he’s still silent and staring at her tight-lipped. “I’m going to go back and you should stay here. Give the tickets to David and Rose, mourn your mom. I’ll be out of the apartment by the time you get home.”

He whimpers and falls into the nearest chair. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No. You did everything exactly right.” Her chest hurts. Aches, really. “Or, it would’ve been exactly right if we didn’t both know there was an expiration date on it.” Everything would end soon anyway—he’d see it, he would.

“We could have another two months,” he says furtively, speaking to his hands. “That’s a long time. We could have eight weeks.” Jamie climbs to his feet, clinging to hope, but when he moves toward her she flinches. “That’s a long time, Amy.”

“Longer we wait the worse it’ll be.” Her tone grows terse as she tries to pull away from this conversation emotionally, her only means of surviving the look on his face.

“ _Please_ , Amy.”

“I’m not like River’s—River’s people, I’m not a stranger, Jamie. We’re not going to be able to just turn it off.” She lied, sort of, when she said he’d done nothing wrong, but she didn’t think it was worth decimating him further just to get a point across. He’s already unwinding, gripping the back of a chair for support, his eyes clenched shut.

“Please,” he says again. She doesn’t know if he’s capable of saying anything else, right now.

She’s got to leave before he breaks down entirely and she, out of empathy or love, changes her mind. She feels selfish enough as is, because it doesn’t seem right for him to have to lose another person right now, but she’s given him too much already, and she would be the one, after all, to suffer the broken heart and solitude at the end of another two months. He’ll box her up and out of his life and he’ll surround himself with River and he’ll be fine; her doing this now is only fair.  

“Can I have the car keys, please?” she asks again, softer this time.

“Will I still be able to see you?” He seems like he’s trying to stifle his desperation and keep a straight face.

Amy swallows hard. “Give it a month and you’ll forget all about me, I promise. You’re good at that.” She regrets saying this immediately; the hurt in his expression is raw and bold, unabated.

“Please,” he says one more time, weakest in its final iteration. He holds his head in his hands.

“The keys, Jamie.” After a moment Jamie fishes in his pocket and hands them to her. Time to go. Rather than a goodbye, Amy kisses his cheek and silently exits the library. Her explanation to his family cites a work emergency, and she apologizes one last time for their loss before she leaves.

* * *

In the airport she calls Sophie, the young woman subletting her place in Brooklyn. She’s been meaning to get a roommate since she moved in, but the timing never seemed right, so this opportunity is golden. Sophie’s a sweet lady, a couple of years older than Amy at most, works in customer service at a big bank. She agrees readily to the offer and Amy senses that she might be a bit of an extrovert, but that can be navigated. Anything to get her away from Fifth Avenue.

* * *

When she lands at JFK, there are six missed calls and three voicemails from Jamie. She listens halfway through the first one and then deletes them all: the sound of his voice does her no kindness. She doesn’t listen to what he says but his tone is pleading.

* * *

It’s snowing in New York. Snow in New York has become rarer and rarer over the years she’s lived here, and is usually greeted conversely with joy and annoyance by the people of the city. Amy’s always leaned toward annoyed, but alone in Jamie’s apartment with her belongings by the door for the cab to Brooklyn tomorrow morning, she looks out over Manhattan and the snow is calming. She’s relieved, all of a sudden. It’s relieved her to run away from the enormity of being in love. And with all this easy feeling she realizes something else very, very important: that it’s unhealthy. She’s left Jamie in spite of loving him and she feels safer. Not better, on the whole, but momentarily safer. Love, unlike in the only books and movies she cares to watch, is terrifying. Love is a firing squad and the rocks at the foot of a cliff. And it’s not supposed to be that way, it’s supposed to be what happened in that room last night, it’s supposed to be the knowledge that there’s nowhere she’d rather be.

Amy bundles herself up snugly and marches across the park, past snowball fights and sledding and old men clearing the sidewalks and stands selling hot cocoa or roasted nuts. The museum is closing but she flashes her ID and goes downstairs to her office, reeking of sameness. It’s still there in the drawer, beneath accumulated papers, the business card Jamie gave her. _Martha Jones, M.D. Psychiatrist._ Shaking, she dials the number.   


	13. Psych

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To compensate for the lack of Jamie in this chapter, I’ll give you an extra thousand words from his perspective in c15, how about? Also, I apologize for the vagueness of Martha’s personality, but good psychiatrists don’t really let themselves shine through all that much.

Martha Jones is not what Amy expected. Dr. Ludlow had been her mother’s doctor, back when she still visited her mother, and he was a shortish man with spectacles and a very white beard, the picture of psychiatry as she’d envisioned it. But Martha is pretty and not five years Amy’s senior, and it’s strange if predictable to realize that they don’t all look like Dr. Ludlow.

And her office, in a West Village townhouse on a strange little side street called Patchin Place, is well lit and airy, even in the winter. The walls and carpet and furniture are all white or pastel or something, far from the darkened Freudian closets and hospital rooms that define Amy’s idea of therapy. Martha—Dr. Jones, Amy supposes, but she’d been thinking of the doctor as Martha for months now, ever since Jamie had given her the business card, it was always Martha who waited in her desk drawer—anyway, Martha had introduced herself, shown Amy in from the tiny waiting room with the usual stack of old _New York_ magazines, and directed her to sit on a large squishy suede couch, which Amy had been sinking into for several minutes now while eyeing her surroundings. The doctor, who’d sat hastily at a little desk in the corner to scribble in a ledger, stands now.

“Would you like something to drink, Amy? We have coffee and tea. And water, if you like.” She talks like Amy’s a guest in her home, not a customer.

“Coffee would be great.”

“Anything in it?”

“A little milk, please.” Martha nods and disappears into the waiting room. They’re already five minutes into Amy’s hour—but this can’t be a ploy if it’s pro bono. Amy allows her head to fall back against the sofa, unsure if she’ll ever be able to get up again. There are at least three tissue boxes in the room, which is either funny or sad, Amy’s not sure. A bookshelf sags with endless volumes titled _Journal of Clinical Psychiatry_ and _Family Therapy_ and _Talking About Stuff_ (okay, so she doesn’t technically see that one). More shelves hold more books, and some weirdly shaped glass trophies. She can make out the words “American College of Psychiatry” engraved on one. Cool, another adult more accomplished than her.

Martha returns, two mugs in hand. “All right, Amy,” she says, smiling and settling into an armchair across from Amy. “I have a few basic questions to start off. So I can get to know you better.”

With a few prompts Amy gives Martha the briefest possible story of her early life—her father’s death, her mother’s illness, Aunt Sharon, the loathsome setting of Topeka. She moves on to an equally brief retelling of her college major, her first job, the Natural History Museum. Martha listens without any discernable reaction, occasionally noting things on a legal pad or asking for another fact.

And then she says, “Tell me about your romantic history,” and Amy wants to puke.

“My romantic history.”

“Yes. Are you single, have you ever been married, do you date? That sort of thing.” Martha’s friendly calmness can’t soothe Amy once she remembers that Martha is supposed to be Jamie’s old friend.

“I had a serious boyfriend throughout college.” Amy traces the rim of her half-empty mug. “We got engaged senior year and then I broke it off after graduation. I had feelings for somebody else. And then we—the same guy, not the other. Not the somebody else, the guy I’d already been engaged to, we got engaged again in our mid-twenties. Broke it off again.”

“And what were their names? Both of the men.”

Their names—is she going to look them up in the phonebook? Does she want their social securities number too, just in case? Amy bites her lip. This is supposed to be her time and it feels like an interrogation. “How do you know Jamie?”

“Excuse me?” Martha looks slightly fazed but far from undone by the question.

 “Jamie, he gave me your card. He said you would treat me for free. Thanks, by the way, I appreciate it, I just wasn’t sure if I could…” Amy grimaces. “Talk about him here? Like does it break some rule you have.”

“Amy,” says Martha as she sets down her pencil. “When you’re in this room, who you know that I also know doesn’t mean anything. Doctor-patient confidentiality is a serious thing. And,” she adds, suddenly more friend than doctor, “we met when we both got featured in Columbia’s magazine as incoming post-undergraduates.”

“Columbia. Right.” Amy had seen the degree on the wall but hadn’t made the connection.

“Back to those two men in college,” Martha prompts. Her professional face is back on, her pen in hand again. “Their names?”

“Rory. My boyfriend, the two-time fiancée, that’s Rory.” She sighs. “And the other guy was Jamie.”

Understanding flickers across Martha’s face but she quickly delves back into neutrality. “Were you involved or did you just have feelings for him?”

The logical part of Amy knows that these are all perfectly reasonable, fact-based questions, but indignation stirs in her stomach anyway. Insulted that she’d be accused of the cheating she’s already admitted to, great. “I guess we—almost hooked up once, because that was what you did in college, and then a couple of other close calls when Rory and I were on a break.” Amy stares at her long-cold coffee. “I think it was mutual but we were both sort of confused, so, you know.” 

“And what about now?”

Amy’s head snaps up. “I’m not with Jamie now.”

“I meant in your love life,” says Martha, with a little smile. Amy feels her cheeks grow hot, and the other woman must notice, because she asks, “Do you want to talk about Jamie?”

Amy considers lying. She doesn’t have anything to say about their mutual friend because she doesn’t love him because she realized she loved him because she never slept with him because they never kissed. They were amicable roommates for a couple of months; that’s the story.

But she recalls the ill-gotten rush of relief she’d felt after running away from happiness, intimidated by the thought of complex vulnerability, and this is _free help_ , when is she going to get a better chance to—improve?

“He’s married,” says Amy weakly.

Martha nods. “And?”

Amy shuts her eyes. “They have an open marriage where they like—for when his wife goes away on really long trips, like for months—and she’s my boss, by the way—they both sleep with other people. Except that Jamie never did, but she thought he did, so she saw how close we were getting and said I should just live in their apartment with him while she was gone, and so we were like, ‘oh, okay, we’ll fake it.’ Except then we didn’t.” She’s talking too fast. It all feels stupid and weak and obvious when she lays it out like this.

She’s apparently been quiet for too long, because Martha asks, “So what happened?” She has a nice, warm sort of voice. Amy wonders if that’s why she got into the business of making people feel better.

“His mom died. And we went to visit his family.” She gulps. The truth is necessary but it’s also difficult and embarrassing and she hates this. “And we slept together. He wanted to take me to Paris.” She doesn’t feel crazy, just like an idiot. “And I don’t know if it’s been there the whole time or if it’s—redeveloped, or something, but I’m pretty sure I love him.”

She expects Martha to sneer or gasp or something, even though that really makes no sense because her psychiatrist has proven herself quite adept at hiding judgment, but it’s still odd to see her completely unfazed at Amy’s revelation that she _loves a married guy_. Is it not as shocking and terrifying and perverted as she thinks?

Martha just asks, “And do you know how he feels?”

Amy blinks. “What?”

“Does he reciprocate? Are you in a relationship with him?”

Amy’s mouth pops open dumbly before she can speak. “He’s married.”

“Have you asked him how he feels?” Martha asks, gentle though this is the fourth time she’s had to repeat the question. Amy shakes her head slowly.

“No. I got on a plane the morning after. I told him it had to end when River—when his wife came back—it had to end anyway.” God, she feels terrible. Embarrassed. Martha’s not even responding and everything Amy says seems stupider than stupid when she puts the whole story together like this.

“So Jamie doesn’t know how you feel, and you don’t know he feels?”

“Nope,” says Amy, her lips tightly pursed.

“Why did you leave?”

She inhales sharply. The truth. No matter how much of a shit she is for what she’s done. “I was happy.” Martha smiles a small, sympathetic smile, waiting. Okay. “I was—I’m not good with like… When you tell a married guy you love him, there’s basically two ways it can go.”  

“And?” asks Martha quietly.

Amy looks at the ceiling. “I wanted it to be one way but I thought it might be the other so I didn’t take the chance.”

Martha has stopped taking notes, and while she maintains that kind of compassionate half-smile, there’s a small furrow in her brow. “What do you think might’ve happened if he didn’t feel the same?”

What’s happening right fucking now, probably. All by herself again. “I’d be really hurt, I guess,” says Amy, rather stiffly, shifting in her seat.

“And what if he did?”

And if he felt the same—good sex. Good after-sex. Good normal them, because they were already a couple, if you thought about it, and she’d said as much to him, and the sex was good and the kissing was good and he was good, and happy, and fuck all of it. “I don’t know,” Amy says. All of the good she’d crushed by getting on that flight wells up in the back of her throat, but _no_ , she won’t be one of the tissue people.

“Can you see yourself with him?”

“Yeah.” Of course; she’s been seeing herself with Jamie for years. Martha pauses to write something down and an insidious realization seizes Amy. “I can’t see him with me.”

The doctor looks up, puzzled. “What do you mean by that?”

“He’s smart and rich. And his wife is smart and rich.” Not to mention the weird Oedipal attraction. “And I peaked in college.” Her tearful urges have dissipated, and she feels herself hardening over, gruff again. Hilarious that once upon a time she was out of Jamie’s league, and now it’s the other way around.

“So you think it’s unlikely he reciprocates,” Martha says slowly.

“Unlikely, or impossible. I was probably smart to leave when I did.” This is enough clarity for one session, especially since clarity doesn’t feel good like it’s supposed to do. Where’s her relief?

“Amy.” Martha seems—concerned. For the first time in the session. So the adultery doesn’t bother her, but the factual disparity between she and Jamie is shocking. “I think you’re being a little hard on yourself,” says Martha.

Amy stares at her like she’s just claimed an alien encounter. “We’re on completely different levels. There’s no reason he’d be interested in me.”

“Do you like yourself, Amy?”

“Do I—what? Of course I like myself.” Or at least she’d never behave as if she didn’t.

“What do you like about yourself?” insists Martha.

“I…” Amy glances at the clock but she’s still got fifteen minutes left of this torture. “I don’t know.” Do her looks count? Everything she thinks of—confidence, not taking anybody’s shit, strength—they’re all false or too vaguely defined. After all, she took Rory’s shit for years. “I can chug a pint in like eight seconds.” Probably not the best joke to make to her psychiatrist.

“Okay,” Martha says, clicking her pen. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

* * *

 

“I think they’re really good,” Sophie declares. She sets the last page of Amy’s articles on the stack with the others. “Let me send them to Mikey. He can get you a job.”

Amy scoops the pages back up. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it.” Funny how Sophie had waited until after Amy’d handed over her work—two articles she’d written and never sold—to mention that brother Mikey was a section editor over at _The Village Voice_.

“Please, Amy!” Sophie gets up from the table and trails Amy into the kitchen. The roommate situation has worked out better than Amy expected. She’s comfortable with Sophie: there’s something about her that’s completely absent of judgment.

“It’s fine, Soph, I wasn’t angling for a job.” Amy flashes her a smile.

“Well, you clearly put a lot of time and effort into them, the articles—I mean, you went to a battered women’s shelter and interviewed all those victims, right?” Amy had indeed done this, and that article is the best of the group, though she’s loath to admit any one of them is decent.

“Yeah,” Amy says tiredly.

“Just…” Sophie squeezes her arm. “Let me send them to Mikey, forget it ever happened, and if anything comes of it, it’ll be a pleasant surprise, okay?”

Amy shrugs her off. “I’ll think about it.”

* * *

 

“I’ll be thirty in a month and a half, which means I’ll have spent all of my twenties planning to become a journalist and never actually doing it.” For the last two weeks she and Martha have talked about Rory, because unsurprisingly that relationship left her with a full luggage cart. Might as well move on to the next great clusterfuck of her life. 

“And why haven’t you done it?”

“I don’t know. Rejection letters, I guess.” She’s already the butt of every romantic joke, she doesn’t need to be a professional hack as well.

“Is that why you don’t want Sophie sharing your work?”

Amy’s gaze flies upwards, which she’s noticed happening when Martha makes connections between her behaviors. “Probably.”

“Are you upset with yourself that you’ve never tried?”

“Probably.” Amy sighs. “You think I should send them out, right?”

Martha smiles and clicks her pen.

* * *

 

Martha begins the fifth session with, “I’d like to talk about Jamie for a bit.”

Great. (Most sessions begin with a similar sarcastic thought.) “What about him?”

“How are you feeling about him lately? It’s been over a month since we last discussed it.”

“Fine, I guess.” She’s been trying furiously not to think about him, which is easy enough in the day when there are a thousand chores to be done and as many trifling busy goals to be accomplished at work and at home. Nighttime proves more challenging, as she often glances at the empty space in her bed and imagines him there, fast asleep, clad in a boyish pajama set as usual, breathing shallowly and warm to the touch of her face laid against his shoulder. She notices silence more when he’s not there to talk endlessly about whatever crosses his mind.

“I’d like you to call him,” says Martha. Dread barrels into Amy. “When you feel ready. I think you should tell him how you feel and ask him how he feels. I think you’ll both be benefit from the honesty.”

Amy gulps. “How do I even know he’ll be honest? River comes back tomorrow.” Her lack of control over the River situation had been eating away at her for weeks: River could know everything, River could know nothing, and Amy wouldn’t have a clue either way unless River told her, which River didn’t seem poised to do.

“I think it’d be good for you to try trusting him, Amy.”

“Why don ’t I just slip a note into his locker?”

One thing Amy has discovered: Martha Jones is the most patient human being on the face of the planet. You’d have to be.

“Call him,” says Martha firmly. “Ask him to have lunch and chat. If you’re too uncomfortable to ask the first time, try again another day.” She smiles. “Just give it a go, it’ll be fine.”  

* * *

 

Amy spends the next day flicking her attention idly between work and Jamie’s number on her phone.  Just around quitting time, River’s assistant appears in the door of her office and Amy starts having flashbacks to the last time River asked for her.

When she enters River’s office, Jamie’s wife is unpacking a box of files. “Amy,” she says brightly. Too brightly? Amy can’t tell. She’s entered the lion’s den or the shark’s tank or whatever but she’s unsure if the beast can sense her status as prey. And on top of that, she feels kind of shitty for thinking of River as a beast. The only thing wrong with River is that there’s nothing wrong with her: she’s got everything Amy wants, but because she has it Amy can’t. It’s a struggle not to be petty.

“Hi,” says Amy, trying to imitate her boss’s cheer. “How was the trip?”

“Excellent. You’ll hear more about it at the staff meeting later, but a huge success, I think.” River pulls open a drawer. “You left something of yours at the apartment.” Her dignity, maybe—but River hands her a phone charger. Right. “Miranda found it cleaning and has been holding on to it.” Of course, Amy had bought a new charger the moment she’d discovered hers was missing, not wanting to risk the contact with Jamie.

But she accepts the plug and cord anyway. “Thanks.” River can’t know anything. Or if she does, best to act like she doesn’t, for civility’s sake. “How is Jamie doing?”

River blinks once at her, still smiling. “James is excellent. Better than ever.”

Amy nods. “Great.”

“And you, Amy? I was sorry to hear you had to move out early.” River’s smile has gotten almost eerily consistent, but she’s harder to read than her husband. She could be tired or hungry or any other state of slight discomfort.

“I’m doing well.” River’s doing a better job playing cool than Amy, at any rate: every word out of her mouth feels stilted and vague, like she’s going to spit out “I love your husband” or “your husband was in me” without even realizing it. She does keep an eye on River’s face each time she speaks, confirming the absence of horror. Except River wouldn’t be horrified by the in-me bit—surprised to hear it so bluntly, sure, but the love—

“I don’t doubt you’ll want to be heading home, dear,” River says.

Thrust back into the moment, Amy coughs. “Yeah, sorry. Of course.”

“I ought to be going too,” River continues, and Amy pauses on her way out. “We’re going to a gallery opening tonight. The boy’s been going on about it for weeks.” She huffs pleasantly, her smile still fixed on Amy. “Husbands. You really ought to get one of your own.”

Amy laughs potentially the most awkward laugh ever laughed and makes a very fast exit.    

* * *

 

“ _James is excellent_ ,” she tells Martha. “That’s what she said. So I don’t really see the point of calling.”

“Well,” says the doctor with her usual, occasionally irritating calmness. “It sounds like she was feeling threatened, and frankly I don’t know if River should be your source for how he’s doing. I think you need to talk to _him_ , Amy. What you two have is a communication issue, and allowing secondhand testimony to stand-in for a real conversation isn’t going to help.”

Amy’s got her arms across her chest and is stomping the carpet intermittently. “River doesn’t need to lie to me. She’s the one that’s married to him.”

Martha exhales sharply, almost but not quite a sigh. “Would you feel threatened in her situation?”

“Probably,” Amy admits, groaning a little.

“There you go, then. Do you want to call him now?”

“No.” She sounds rather bratty and winces.

“Do you want to see him?”

“Yes,” she whines. Just a glimpse of him, grinning at her with his hair in his eyes, and breathing, being physically there. Two seconds, and no more, she promises—though she doesn’t know to whom she’s promising this frugality. Herself, maybe.

“Amy.” There’s a reproving note in Martha’s voice. “Get out your phone, we’ll do it now.”

Amy gapes. “Here? In the session?”

“Yes! Get out your phone, go on.”

With what she’s sure is an unattractive pout, Amy retrieves her cell from her purse and finds Jamie’s number. She glances up at Martha, who’s waiting with her hands folded neatly across her notepad. She hits call and presses the phone to her ear.

It dials once, then again, then nothing. Amy squints at the screen. _Call ended._

“He hung up on me.”

She looks at Martha, who for the first time in six sessions appears fazed, gaping slightly. Neither of them had expected this. Amy’s breathing goes ragged as her throat constricts. He hung up on her. Even awkward, disinterested Jamie isn’t aggressively rude—it’s impossible. River must have seen the phone, yes, that’s got to be it. She’s probably got Jamie tied up somewhere—or maybe Amy’s being unfair.

Maybe Jamie hates her. She remembers the look on his face when she left Portland. He could hate her.

Then there’s a familiar vibration in her hand. The screen flashes _Jamie McCrimmon Calling_.

“Oh,” breathes Amy. “It’s him.” Martha smiles hesitantly.

Amy sucks in a deep breath and selects _accept call_. “Hi Jamie.”


	14. Patience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the shortishness of these past few chapters. It will get better!

“I never really wanted to live in Brooklyn.” Amy grabs a box of Cheerios and sets it in the shopping cart that Sophie’s pushing.

“Really?”

“Nope. When I moved to New York it was what I could afford.”

“Mm,” says Sophie, grinning. “Grab some oreos?”

“Obviously.” Amy tosses the cookies in with the rest of their groceries.

“I know what you mean, though. It’s less chaotic than Manhattan, it doesn’t have that heartbeat.”

“Wish it did.”

“Me too. You know.” They enter the dairy aisle, where Amy stares indecisively at a wall of Greek yoghurt. “Between the two of us, we could probably afford Manhattan rent.”

Amy snorts. “Right.”

“I mean it. I’m getting a raise soon. And, by the way,” Sophie adds, leaning over the cart toward her. “Mikey wants to run the piece on the women’s shelter.”

Amy drops about five things of Chobani all over the floor of Whole Foods. “He…”

“Yeah! He’s going to email you with the offer soon.” Sophie’s giggling as they stoop down to start recovering the yoghurts. “And he said they’re interviewing for a new blogger, if you’re interested.”

Blogging? The two or three journalism classes she’d taken in college hadn’t covered blogging. “I don’t know anything about blogs,” she says, grabbing some creamer.

“I think it’s just like a weekly column on the internet. And,” Sophie nudges her. “A little bit of extra cash will help us get to Manhattan.”

Amy seizes on to this idea because anything is better than discussing her career options and the uncertainty surrounding them. She’ll interview, she’ll do it, but she doesn’t want to think about it until then. “There’s no way we can afford a place in Manhattan.”

“A two-bedroom in midtown, we could get that for three or four a month, I bet, and split between the two of us that’s less than what you were paying before I moved in.” Amy bites her lip; Sophie’s logic seems sound, and it’s a nice idea, an apartment in midtown. It could cut her commute in half, though in the back of her head she can’t help thinking that if everything goes as planned she won’t be working at the museum much longer.

“If you find a place, I’ll go look with you,” Amy grudges. Sophie claps and hops in the middle of the store, garnering a few passing stares from the other customers.  

“Perfect,” she gushes. “And I’ll give you Mikey’s number when we get home.” Amy nods and attempts to keep her hope in check.

* * *

The phone call had been short: hi – hi – how are you – fine you – same – we should grab lunch – yeah how’s Friday – noon and I’ll come to you – great – bye – bye.

Amy goes straight uptown to Columbia from an open house with Sophie, having taken the morning off for this purpose, and spends most of the ride thinking about whether it’s worth downgrading their apartment just for a Chelsea location. It distracts her from considering where she’s going, and it’s an important issue anyway. A voice sounding not unlike Martha also informs her that there’s no use in worrying about a conversation she hasn’t had yet. She’s come to think of this voice as the pill voice: the way the little white anti-depressants she’s been on for a month share their opinions with her.

Despite the brief directions and office number he’d texted her, she gets a little lost wandering around Columbia’s behemoth of a campus. The environment is honestly distracting: there are students everywhere, and she can’t forget that she and Jamie met at a place not too different from this.

Eventually she finds the building and his office. The door is cracked open and quiet voices sound from inside. She checks her watch—fifteen minutes late. He’s probably already found a replacement lunch date. Before she knocks, she notes that while the rest of the academics on this hall have maybe a comic or a magazine article or a photograph taped to their doors, Jamie’s looks like he’s vomited personality all over it. Not an inch of free space remains above the handle. He’s tiled it with cut-outs and photocopies of whole pages from books and pictures of places he’s been—she recognizes the one of him in the Large Hadron Collider because he’s got a print of it framed in the apartment, and he once spent twenty minutes describing the experience to her in extensive detail. He grins giddily in the photograph, leaned cockily against the pipe in a hardhat. Amy catches herself smiling. She pulls a band out from her purse and tugs her hair into a sloppy bun, then raps the door.

“Come in,” calls his familiar voice, and she slips inside. The door turns out to be an accurate reflection of the room’s interior.

Jamie is sitting at a colorful mess of a desk with a young man across from him, a student judging from the way he’s packing away a calculator and notebook. They both stand when they see her, for different reasons.

“Hi, Amy,” says Jamie, sounding as though he’s just been punched in the gut.

“Hi,” she says slowly, forcing a smile.

“I was just finishing up office hours. This is Jason.” He indicates the kid, who’s staring openly at Amy. She waves at him.

“Hey,” says Jason. She imagines smacking him to wipe the leer from his face.

Jamie seems oblivious to Jason’s appraisal of her. “Amy’s my—”

“Your wife, right?” The stupid kid’s still looking at her. Leave it to some punk ass college student to make this encounter even more awkward. “Yeah, I saw that you were married.” Had Jamie been wearing his ring when they fucked? She can’t remember—when would he have taken it off? Surely if he wore it she’d have noticed and felt like shit.

Amy shakes her head. The lighting in the office isn’t great, but she can see that Jamie has gone tomato red. The ring glints antagonistically on his finger as he reaches up to shield his face. “No, no—no. No, no. No.” Maybe he needs to say it one more time. “No, she’s not my wife. My friend. She’s my friend, my old friend.”

“Oh,” says Jason, finally glancing back at Jamie, who’s found some papers to shuffle. “Sorry. I’ll see you next week, Dr. McCrimmon.” The kid seems flustered but she has zero pity for him. “Nice meeting you,” he mutters on his way out.

“Have a good weekend,” calls Jamie. His voice has shot up an octave.

“Bye, _Jason_ ,” Amy says through her teeth, and then she’s alone with Jamie. She takes a small step into the office. “Did a bomb go off in here?”

“A _knowledge_ bomb.” Amy’s not quite comfortable enough to laugh at him. He ducks his head. “I’m sorry I said that. All bombs are knowledge bombs, it takes knowledge to make bombs. A knowledge bomb would just be a regular bomb. Sorry the office is so messy. I’ve been doing some experiments. Shall we go to lunch?” He’s talking so fast he’s out of breath by the end of this tirade. It’d be cute if she weren’t just as nervous, as well as determined not to find him cute.

Fallen silent, he grabs his coat from the back of the door and Amy retreats into the hall. “I didn’t know you’d started teaching,” she says, to fill the quiet as they start toward the exit.

“One of the professors had to take the semester off at the last minute and they gave me his courses.” Jamie walks a step ahead of her, leading the way, so she doesn’t have to see his face. “I like it a lot. Being around all these young minds,” he adds, flashing her a smile. It’s still a bit of a struggle: she tries to look everywhere but the back of his neck, at anything but the hair curling there, for fear she’ll start thinking about touching it or the one time she got to touch it, and that night will come back to her in an apocalyptic rush. He’s still talking, “It’s better than the lab. Well, I like the lab too. I still get to do my research and everything, so best of both worlds. And I’m keeping busy, that’s important right now. The department chair said there might be money for a professorial hire this semester, which means I could be teaching full-time by the fall.”

“That sounds really cool,” she says perfunctorily. They ride the elevator down and she’s content to stand shoulder-to-shoulder while he yammers on about his classes and students, clearly trying to avoid any awkwardness by keeping the conversation at a maximum.

“Do you mind diner food?” he asks as they exit the hall and traverse the open campus center. Even on a chilly day like today, people sit on the green, reading and smoking. 

“Sounds fine.”

“Great. We’ll go to Tom’s.”

Amy eyes him. “The _Seinfeld_ place?”

“There’s a Suzanne Vega song too. Best milkshakes in the city. When I was in graduate school I’d go there all hours for one.” Every time she chances to look at him he’s focused on something other than her. Sometimes he’s turning his head and she suspects that the stolen glances are mutual.

When they reach the street the din of traffic drowns out any need for conversation and she’s grateful for it. Her stomach twitches in panic, regretting the public setting of a restaurant but trapped. Less than ten minutes later they enter under the diner’s iconic red sign and are sat at a booth by the window. The place bustles with tourists and Columbia folk. Amy buries her face in her menu to buy them a few more minutes of silence.

The waitress arrives. She looks a little like Roseanne Barr and grins at Jamie.

“Good afternoon, Beth,” he says, smiling broadly. Of course he knows her name. He probably knows the cook’s name, too.

“Giant butter pecan milk shake?” He nods. He knows Beth’s name, Beth knows his order. His waitress friend.

“And I’ll have a grilled cheese with ham, too,” Jamie chimes.

Waitress Friend Beth looks at Amy. “And for you?”

 “Iced tea and a cheeseburger. Medium, please.”

WFBeth nods and trots off.

“A giant butter pecan milkshake,” repeats Amy, grinning behind her hand.

An incredible expression crosses his face, a flicker of relieved hopefulness and humor at the glimpse of their old dynamic: she teases him, he reciprocates. It’s joyful and devastating for her. On the one hand he’s pleased; on the other, this is the first time he’s been pleased since they met up.

“You should try it when it comes, you’ll understand.”

Amy guffaws skeptically and Jamie continues to grin, fiddling with his napkin. His leg brushes hers underneath the table and she thanks the Lord Jesus Christ in Heaven that she wore pants today so she can pull her legs up to sit cross-legged on the bench.

They’ve slipped back into discomfort so quickly it’s almost funny, in a kind of sad way, and she finds herself smiling apologetically in his direction. He returns the gesture. Should she say something now? Their food hasn’t even come. What if it falls apart and she’s still got to eat her burger? But she can’t think of anything to say without first scaling this massive wall between them.

“I’m sorry,” says Amy, and his mouth pops open, not understanding. “About the way I left Portland. It was insensitive and, you know. I was just freaking out about stuff. I’m sorry.”

Jamie’s gaze drops to the tabletop. “That’s—that’s okay.” There’s a long pause and she wonders if that’s it. There’s more to say, certainly, but she had expected—she had expected him to at least engage a little so she didn’t have to put everything out there at once. 

“How are things in your life right now?” he offers gently, and she realizes he’s been talking about himself the whole time. Scared to ask about her, probably.

“Everything’s good with me.” He can’t know about the career stuff because River can’t know about the career stuff, and Amy’s hard-pressed to forget that he owes more loyalty to River than she. “I’m quitting,” she remembers, and flashes the nicotine patch on her upper arm.

Jamie’s expression softens, which delights her. It’s been a long two weeks without a cigarette, and she’s tried to stop once a year since she started, but now she’s got Martha and Sophie to keep her honest. “That’s excellent. I’m proud of you,” he says.

“Thanks.” He cares a little, at least. Seems obvious but it’s nice to have the reinforcement.

“And Sophie worked out okay?”

“Yeah, she’s great. We’re talking about getting a place in Manhattan, actually. I just came from an open house.”

“I’m very glad to hear that.” Now he’s openly beaming.

Another long pause. Martha had said she could wait, if she didn’t feel ready, but she doesn’t want to endure another one of these awkward lunches.

Amy coughs. “I didn’t really explain why I left.”

Deflating, he sucks on his lower lip for a second and then toys with the button on his cuff. “No, I understood.”

“You did?” she asks, her mouth going dry.

“Yeah, you were right about everything. Suppose I just didn’t want to admit it.” Right about everything. 

“I was worried I’d developed feelings for you.” Her voice sounds gruff in her ears and she wraps her napkin around her hand until it hurts. “Seems pretty crazy now.”

“Completely crazy,” he agrees, nodding vigorously.

 _You said something just so I’d refute it_ —fuck. Amy takes a deep breath. It’s too late now—is it too late now? Jamie’s looking out the window to the street, the smallest lopsided frown on his lips.

“You and me,” he half-mutters, staring at a taxi. “Completely crazy.”

“Butter pecan shake and an iced tea,” booms Beth. Amy jumps. Their waitress stands over them out of nowhere. Looking chipper, she sets down their drinks.

“Thanks,” says Jamie. He appears returned to reality, now that Beth has served his milkshake (with two straws). They spend a minute sipping before she accidentally looks him in the eye.

She was right about everything. Nobody wants to be with a person who can’t even admit that togetherness is an appealing idea. She can feel the expectation strung between them, and one of them needs to just _say it_ already, because they’re both thinking it, they must be, unless he’s thinking about his butter pecan shake, that’d make sense too. After all, she’s probably given herself too much credit. She needs to stop making assumptions.

Jamie breaks the stare. “Did you get the phone charger?” Amy nods and he licks a little bit of milkshake from the corner of his mouth. “It’s nice not to be alone in the apartment anymore. I’ve decided it really is too big for one person.”

Her throat constricts, and some color fills her cheeks. Anger. “Yeah, I’m so glad you don’t have to suffer that torture anymore. What kind of bitch would ask you to spend two months by yourself?”

Jamie flushes red and she feels a twinge of satisfaction, though it passes quickly.

“Amy.” He’s shaking his head. “I didn’t mean—”

She swallows it. “No, it’s fine. Sorry. Didn’t mean it.” She takes a long sip of iced tea and he of milkshake. “I’m glad you’re happy to be back with River.”

He looks up at her with an open mouth and a tightly knit brow. It’s the slowest, most potent, invigorating and terrifying pause yet in their stuttering conversation.

“Thank you,” he manages.

She wishes this exchange were more befuddled—the apprehensive obviousness of what’s happening only aggravates her desire to flee.

Their food arrives to frustrated silence. They eat quietly, too, aside from asking after each other’s meals. After a while Jamie starts telling stories of his favorite Tom’s experiences, and she laughs somewhat genuinely at his escapades. He always has so much to say, but not what she’s looking to hear. Not today, at least.

When the lunch is done, she and Jamie pause to say goodbye on the street in front of the restaurant.

“I’ll see you,” Amy says, waving sort of stupidly.

“Yes. Definitely.” _Liar_ , she thinks violently, meaning both of them.

Jamie hugs her, tentative at first and then firm. Her head falls on his shoulder, caught by the familiar snug of their shapes. He lets go of her and doesn’t even stop before he starts to walk away, which leaves her to stand there, watching his back as he strides up Broadway.

Martha’s going to kill her.

* * *

A couple of days later, feeling restless, Amy glances at the next months on the kitchen calendar. Penciled in at the end of April, six weeks from now, is _Melody Wedding_. She swears loudly enough to draw Sophie’s attention away from the newspaper.

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s—I’m supposed to go to Massachusetts for my college roommate’s wedding at the end of April.” Sophie gives her a curious look but she doesn’t know how to explain. The invitations had come in December. “I was going to go with Jamie,” she says, pressing her thumb to the date. They’d laughed about surprising Mels by RSVPing separately and then arriving together. 

“Who’s Jamie?” Sophie asks. Amy does feel a little guilty, for months of denying Sophie this private insight into her life, but she’s been trying not to dwell.

“He’s just—a guy,” she mutters.

Sophie’s eyes narrow. “An ex?”

What a generous label for her and Jamie’s _thing_. “Sort of.” They’re not going to get into this now. “Want to be my plus one? We get a discount on the rooms at this posh hotel.”

“Sounds fun,” says Sophie, but Amy can hear her brushing the wedding out of the way, not letting go of the Jamie question. “What happened with you and this guy?”

“Not much.” Amy dumps out the dregs of cold coffee from her mug and starts fixing a fresh cup.

“We’ve been living together for over two months now and you’ve never once like, been on a date or gotten a guy’s number or anything.”

“I hooked up with that one guy,” Amy protests, though she’s not proud of the encounter. She’d gone home with him after five drinks and gotten a taxi the second he fell asleep. She’d even made sure to pick him up somewhere other than her favorite bar, so as to not risk running into him again.

“You mean the one who doesn’t have your last name?”

Amy rolls her eyes. Sophie’s on to her. “Yes.” She sits down across from Sophie with her fresh mug of coffee.

“So, Jamie,” says Sophie expectantly.

“Old flame from college, ran back into him recently, slept together but he’s married.” The hugeness of their story compactly delivered floors Sophie for a moment. “I’m trying to take some time to work on my stuff right now,” Amy further explains.

“That makes sense.” Her roommate seems subdued. She’d probably expected to hear about some nasty text after a break-up, not adultery. “Did you love him?” Amy takes a long sip of coffee and pretends not to hear the question. “I’m really sorry, Amy, that’s so difficult.”

“I’m over it.” It must be obvious she’s lying, but she doesn’t care. Eighteen hours until her next session with Martha.

Sophie grabs her hand and squeezes it. “Hey, listen. You spend the next few weeks recuperating, and then our like, mission for the wedding can be to set you up with some amazing guy at this wedding. People always meet their future spouses at weddings.”

“I’m not really the marrying type.”

“Then your future—I don’t know, person. It can be just like _Three Weddings and a Funeral_.”

Amy shrugs. “Never seen it.”


	15. Pains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter rewinds a bit—consider it as running parallel to C13 and C14 and then going a little further, in terms of chronology.

That night, after Amy’s long departed for the airport, David tells Jamie he doesn’t want the tickets to Paris. Jamie’s response involves raising his voice and storming out, never mind the shock of fear in Rose’s face or the stoniness in Chris’s.

It’s nearly midnight by the time he emerges from his room, having cried for a while and then fallen asleep.

Chris and David are in the living room with a six-pack sat between them, a familiar sight from Jamie’s adolescence. They don’t greet him.

“Where’s Rose?” Jamie asks, his voice sticking a little after the tears.

“Gone to bed,” says David.

“Oh. Can you tell her ‘sorry’ for me?”

“Already did.”

Jamie nods and inhales deeply. Chris, whose regards him with a softer expression than his other brother, gestures for Jamie to join them.

“I’d offer you a drink, but I know you don’t want one,” he says as Jamie settles in an armchair across from them.

“Yeah, thanks but no thanks.”

There’s a long pause as Chris and David sip and Jamie stares at the carpet. He’s trying to keep his mind blank, thinking blank thoughts about the color white and the hum of the fridge a few rooms over, but the moment he slacks in his meditation he’s back in the library again, with Amy leaving.

Finally, glancing around, David sits forward. “Well, if no one else is going to bring it up, I’m going to go ahead and ask what the hell happened with Amy.” Jamie shuts his eyes. He doesn’t want to discuss it; he needs to discuss it. It’s as though he’s been blindfolded and bound to a playground roundabout, except the spinning never stops, mocks physics. “I mean, I know you fucked her, we all—” Jamie strangles out a gasp, while Chris puts an exasperated hand to his face, and David looks at them critically. “What? We all knew, we _heard_ them.”

Jamie’s flush from shame, and a little bit from the memory of Amy, pink-cheeked and glinting with sweat, moaning beneath him. “We were _quiet_.”

“Not that quiet,” mutters Chris, eyes on the ceiling.

“Think you got a little excited there toward the end,” David agrees. “It’s understandable. Also, this is not really the issue I’m seeing—”

“River knows,” Jamie interrupts. He’d long prioritized keeping the semi-monogamous aspect of his and River’s marriage a secret, mainly due to the potential for judgment and embarrassment and also his relative lack of perspective on the arrangement’s normalcy, but now it feels as though he’s on trial and this information holds the key to his defense. “She doesn’t care, it was her idea. She does the same thing when she’s gone for a long time.”

David squints at him. “You have… like an open—does that _work_? Doesn’t really seem like your kind of thing.”

Jamie glowers miserably at them, not wanting to admit that he doesn’t know if it’s working because he’s not sure what working looks like. Does it work? Do he and River work? Does _he_ work?

“Have you thought about talking to River?” asks Chris. Jamie doesn’t understand, or rather chooses not to understand, because he talks to River almost every night on the phone so what could Chris mean, anyway?

“About what?” He implies that there’s nothing to say when in reality there’s everything to say, and he doesn’t know where to begin.

“Do you talk to River about anything?” demands David. “Do you even like being married to River?” Chris twitches, maybe disapproving of the tone.

“Shut up,” Jamie snaps. David gets a girlfriend who sticks around for more than a few months and suddenly he’s an expert on relationships. On his wedding day—his _wedding day_ , right in the middle of city hall—David had taken him aside and said very plainly that he was making a mistake. His brother had been wrong then and is wrong now. And how do you know, anyway? How’re you supposed to tell if you like being married to somebody? Is there a dinger that goes off when happiness has run its course?

“And how do you feel about Amy?” Chris adds, gentler.

Jamie gulps. Amy. “Those two things are unrelated.”

“They may be unrelated but they’re not irrelevant to one another,” says David, opening another beer. Jamie puts his head in his hands and groans, which seems to affect David. “We’re just worried about you, kid. Between this and Mom…” He shrugs.

“You can change your mind, you know,” says Chris. “We won’t indict you. Nobody will, honestly, seeing as it happens all the time.”

Jamie shakes his head, at the suggestion of an error, at the idea that he’s got something to sort out. “Does it matter how I feel about Amy? She’s gone. She got what she wanted.” This interpretation of events occurs and reoccurs to him and cleaves him anew each time. He can’t decide who’s to blame for the bad taste in his mouth, himself or her, but perhaps he’s just entertaining the notion that Amy’s wronged him so he doesn’t have to face the reality of his own assumptions: that she’d ignore his wedding ring and succumb to _more_ ness, to a meaningful state. Presumptuous. Of course she only cares about the sex—she’s not as stupid as him, digging a deeper hole.

Chris is frowning. “She didn’t say why she was going?”

God, he doesn’t want to think about what she said. It inevitably leads to thinking about what he _didn’t_ say, and he can’t have that. “She—she said we weren’t going to be able to turn it off.”

David makes a face, considering this. “So whatever ‘it’ is, it was already on. And _really_ on.”

“ _It_ is sex,” Jamie says flatly.

“I’m not sure about that,” Chris replies, still frowning.

“That’s what she’s always wanted from me, which is fine.” Depleted by this conversation, Jamie gets to his feet. “Since we were in college—it’s really fine. She’s beautiful, that doesn’t happen everyday, a beautiful woman who wants that from you.” His gaze darts across the floor sporadically as he heads for the stairs.

“Jamie,” says Chris, but David mutters something under his breath, maybe _let it go_.

Her leaving doesn’t make sense any other way, and that’s fine. Fine fine fine. Fine isn’t happy but he’s misinterpreted, overestimated, he always does with Amy, because she’s _Amy_ , Amy who’s too witty, too savvy for the likes of him, and who wouldn’t want _more_ ness from her? It’s all very understandable. It’s like when he didn’t get into Harvard even though the admissions officer said he interviewed well. Just like that.

* * *

 

Jamie calls River on his first night back in the apartment and tells her about Amy’s sudden departure. He lies, saying she’d felt nostalgic for Brooklyn very suddenly and decided to move back. He apologizes silently, and then River asks him about the funeral in a tone that strikes him as light considering the occasion. He ought to respond with more enthusiasm than he does, but River asking him about the funeral reminds him of River not being at the funeral, and while it doesn’t bother him (could he expect her to travel halfway around the world and interrupt her work to spend a few hours mourning a relative she’d met maybe three or four times?), he doesn’t want her to feel like he’s guilting her. So he claims a headache and promises to call back in a day, though it eventually takes him two.

* * *

 

The beginning of the semester is less than a week away when he gets the call about filling the teaching vacancy. An undergraduate intro course and an upper-level research seminar, neither of which have a syllabus drawn up—but they’re his.

After days surrounded by textbooks and copies of previous layouts for the courses, he finishes the prep work with hours to spare before the deadline for getting everything approved and photocopied. It’s only when he’s sent it all off and laid down for bed that he realizes: the time he spent working was the longest since Portland he’s gone without Amy’s absence pressing him. If merely by its consumption of hours, the work distracted him.

So he decides to work more. A lot more.

His job at Columbia had always been sort of part-time, and he’d liked it that way, because it was fun and he felt passionate about it, but he felt—feels—similarly about many things, and the setting of the lab grew monotonous after a while. 

But that changes. He forces it to change, and though it feels a little like his jacket’s shrunk two sizes, at least he doesn’t feel everything as acutely as he might have if he let his mind wander. The apartment might as well echo with its hugeness, and sometimes he sleeps swaddled on the cramped sofa in his office instead. He has to keep doing things or he’d be alone, and he’d be bored, being alone, or something like that.  

* * *

At dinner on River’s first night back, he is once again maybe a little quieter than usual, but he’s gotten used to being on his own. It’s not that dramatic; River hasn’t noticed. Or, she doesn’t notice right away.

At a pause, she sips her wine and says, “I knew Pond was a bit dull, but I didn’t think anyone could take the chat out of you.”

Jamie looks up from his plate. This is the first time anyone has spoken to him about Amy in two months. Not even Chris would mention her when he called home. He feels slow. “Dull?”

“You know, not much of a conversationalist.” Below their window, a series of sirens courses by.

“She’s… that’s not true.” Has River insulted Amy? This is new, and the feeling is new, it’s like—it makes his jaw clench—it’s anger. Maybe even a pulse of rage. And it’s strange, Amy’s practically a stranger to him now, or she should be, but that doesn’t mean River can tarnish his memory of her. “Why would you say that?”

River looks at him open-mouthed, so the feeling must be showing, and he tries to rearrange his features, to dial himself back.

“That’s been my experience with her, James.”

“You’re wrong.”

Her eyebrows twitch upwards in apparent judgment. “You’ve had two months to get over her, sweetie. I hope it won’t be a problem.”

This time he can’t contain himself. And it’s maybe, slightly, a smidge not just about River’s degradation of Amy but about River herself, and her return, and her initial absence and what they’re both still doing in this apartment when it’s six months since he felt like she’s the person he wants to share it with.

“That’s not a problem.” He sets down his fork with a clatter and glares at a spot on the table as he speaks. “Or, it’s a problem, but it’s—the problem is that you thought I’d enjoy using her for four months because that’s what you like to do, but I’m not like you, not about that stuff, which means you don’t understand how I feel about sex, which means you don’t understand how I feel about sex with you, which means you can’t possibly begin to understand how I feel about you.” Gulping, he picks his fork back up and stabs into a carrot, but doesn’t eat it.

“Well,” says River coolly. “I suppose you don’t know me very well either.” He avoids her gaze as she stands and starts to clear her plate. “Then again, you never were big on seeing anything that doesn’t match your imagination perfectly. Shit for a scientist,” she adds.

“I’m sleeping in one of the guest rooms tonight,” he calls after her, to no response.

* * *

 

He shouldn’t have answered. He’s sure of it after he leaves Tom’s that Friday afternoon: he should have trusted his first impulse to throw the phone out the window when it flashed her name. He should have run away and never once thought about how nice it would be to see her after two months too many, humor plucking at the corners of her mouth and the brilliance of her hair sweeping across her cheek when she glances down. He should have never thought what he _always_ thinks about Amy, or what he always feels about Amy, which is that he’ll make any excuse to be near her, even if it ruins their friendship or his marriage or his life. It’s an insistence that’s fading, slowly, but he doesn’t know how to get over the driving impulse, the crux of caring that draws him to her. Actions are easy enough to change, but emotion, that’s an unwieldy beast.

After the lunch he goes to the lab and doesn’t leave until ten o’clock that night, and only then because his eyes start to water unbearably. The equations and hypotheses drown out thoughts of Amy’s passing concern that she might have feelings for him, thoughts of his own agreement and percolated self-criticism, because she’s right to be worried about loving him. Loving James McCrimmon has never done any good for anybody. It’s a foolish pursuit and Amy’s smart to stay out of it, but his stomach hurts so horribly, and he has a glass of water for dinner before the stillness of the guest room drives him to tears, the first time he’s cried since his last trip home, which itself was the first time in years.

* * *

 

He decides to move into a hotel because it’ll be fun, living in a hotel. Like a movie. He always wants to live life like he’s in a movie, even though he hasn’t seen many. But he’s got an idea about what they’re like, which is good enough to fuel his comparisons.

He does not, however, know how to get mail forwarded to a hotel, and he’s not ready for an apartment yet. He doesn’t delve into the reasons why he’s not ready for an apartment, he just accepts that he isn’t and works around it. And having to return to Fifth Avenue once a week gives him the chance to reconcile with River, he tells himself, but the thought is more a moral necessity than a promise.  Most of the time he doesn’t even see her, and when he does, little is said.

Except for the second week. The second week he’s been leafing through his pile of letters and magazines in the gallery for just a moment when River enters from the kitchen.

They make eye contact and he assumes she’ll move on, so he goes back to his mail.

“Did you tell her to do it?” she asks, and his head snaps up.

“What? Who?”

“Pond.”

River waits, like he’s supposed to know what she’s talking about.

“Amy did something?”

His wife’s—still his wife’s—expression lacks emotion in a brutal, terrifying way, a hardness he didn’t know she possessed, which tells him at least that she did one time love him. “Today,” says River, strolling down the gallery. “She handed in her two weeks notice. Apparently she’s got one article published in _The Voice_ and she thinks she’s going to be a journalist. It’s the least practical idea I’ve ever heard, so I assumed it was yours.”

His stomach does something weird, a little flip. “I haven’t seen Amy, but that sounds it’s great for her.” He wishes he had half Amy’s wit, because he’s unarmed against River’s little digs. He ought to find a copy of the paper when he’s done here, and read her work, though it must be good if she’s got it published in that big of a paper with no previous experience, and it’s _Amy_ , anyway. Yes, she’ll be a great writer, better than him, better than River—

“You haven’t seen her,” repeats River, with smug, revelatory joy.

He grips his mail tightly. He doesn’t want this, to fight with her, the confrontation opens him like a scalpel might, but he can’t just _let_ her, not about him and Amy. It’s too fresh and important. “I didn’t leave because of Amy, I left because of you.”

River grins. “Regardless, it comforts me to know that it’s not a pussy riot over at the Plaza.” Jamie ducks his head, which turns out to be a mistake, because any shred of vulnerability kills you in this game. “She doesn’t even want you, does she?”

“Goodbye, River,” he manages, slamming the button on the elevator.

“Oh, sweetie, you can’t even leave your wife properly,” she says, and disappears into the library.

In the elevator he decides to flip through his mail to distract himself and finds an envelope in Martha’s professional stationary. Initially he’s puzzled, but his pulse quickens as he recalls what he’d asked her to do all those months ago. He tears into it, and just as he suspected: a bill for four sessions and a small handwritten note, “doing well.”

He’s smiling. He probably shouldn’t be smiling, since Amy has now bought his lie and, despite her efforts to push him from her life, he’s inserted an invisible presence there. She’d have turned him down if he offered; he’s sure, because if she doesn’t want him then she doesn’t want his money, that’s not Amy.

But all that matters, really _really_ matters, is getting her better. _Doing well_. She’s doing well with Martha and she’s got the new work, the work he remembers her talking about when they were getting to know one another in school, and he’s smiling. The doorman gives him a look as he exits to the street.

When she’s got a steady income and Martha thinks it’s time, he’ll tell her, and she’ll be furious and it’ll be the last conversation he gets to have with her, but that knowledge stirs hazily on his horizon. At the moment, nothing could be more worth it.

And he’s got to find a copy of that paper.

The problem, Jamie discovers, is that it’s _yesterday_ ’s paper. And not a newsstand, not a Duane Reade, not a Starbucks—nobody has a copy of yesterday’s paper. And he looks everywhere. One disgruntled shopkeeper asks why he doesn’t just look it up online, and he insists that he must have the hard copy, he’s got to hold it in his hands.

 After two hours he’s certain he’s cased the whole of the Upper East Side, only pausing to email his students a cancellation notice for that day’s office hours, and then he heads downtown to do the same thing in the Village. It’s there that he eventually finds one, stuck between the cushions of a booth in a deli. He orders himself a very large sandwich as a reward, and sits down to read it.

He reads it once, and then again, and then he eats the sandwich and reads it a third time, taking pains not to get mayonnaise on the paper. When he’s done, he takes out his Swiss army knife, thinks of how she’d probably remark that he’s the last person on the planet to carry a Swiss army knife, and cuts out the article as cleanly as he can manage. And, finally, with the management of the deli tapping their feet in preparation to close, he folds Amy’s work neatly until it’s a tight square, slips it into his wallet, and goes home for the night.

* * *

 

It happens after class. Jamie had been expecting he and River to have a chat about it at some point, but she’s decided to cease all their communications, he supposes. At this point he’s found an apartment on West 13th Street, so he’s got his mail coming and he doesn’t have to go by Fifth Ave anymore. It’s been a week by since he moved in and each room has only one or two pieces of furniture in it.

So he gets served after class—a guy in a suit walks up to the lectern where he’s gathering his things and hands him his divorce papers. Jamie must stand there for ten minutes after the guy leaves, just staring into the big yellow envelope, until a professor arrives needing the classroom and he’s shooed off.

At some point that day, he realizes for the first time that he never retrieved his wedding ring from the bedside drawer of the hotel room before checking out, which he supposes is okay now.

“You need to find a lawyer,” Chris tells him over the phone. “Ask one of your divorced friends.” But he doesn’t have any divorced friends. They all belong to River. They’re older and barely tolerated him to begin with—he’d found out at one party that his nickname was ‘the Sock’, because dogs love socks as toys, and also something about masturbation. He’d thought then, as he did now, that this wasn’t very clever and Amy could’ve come up with a better insult.  

The divorce lawyer he eventually decides on is called Counselor Strand, and as far as Jamie knows he doesn’t have a first name, and is also such an inimitable person you don’t care to ask if he has a first name. Jamie attempts to bring him some lunch during one of their meetings, but he only complains about the mustard on his sandwich being yellow and not Dijon. He also calls Jamie “Mr. McCrimmon” instead of “Dr. McCrimmon,” and grunts when corrected.

They undergo “the fastest goddamn divorce proceedings” Counselor Strand has seen twenty years, three weeks, speedy even for an uncontested split, since what they both want most is for it to be over. For the last meeting he has to wear a Real Suit, with matching trousers and jacket, and a tie, but he picks a cool blue one, so that’s not that bad. He stands looking in the mirror for a long time, batting away discomfort, trying the coat buttoned and unbuttoned and shrugging his shoulders over and over as if it might help. He doesn’t understand where this unnaturalness came from, like he’s a jelly from one mold being shoved into another.

An hour later, River and her lawyer sit across from Jamie and Counselor Strand and Jamie says nothing, looks at nobody, spins distractedly in the big leather office chair. Signs where he’s told. And then River’s lawyer announces that they’re divorced under the law. Jamie gets a copy of all the official documents in another one of those big yellow envelopes. It seems like an awful lot of paperwork for one little divorce.

He and River end up waiting for the elevator together. Jamie stares at the crease between the doors.

“I’m sorry,” he says, after a long silence. He doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for. Nothing specific, probably, but a general plea to the karma gods: _please let it work out better next time_.

The elevator arrives and River squeezes his arm as they get in. “Me too, sweetie.”

* * *

 

Jamie returns to his apartment and changes clothes immediately. The tweed is starting to fray again, and he’ll need to take it to Markie the tailor, who will probably tell him for the third time in two years that a piece of clothing can only take so much repair.

Will he still be James McCrimmon, orphaned divorcee, without a tweed jacket? Without _this_ tweed jacket? That’s been with him since he was seventeen and paid twenty dollars for it in a thrift shop. He isn’t sure, and he’s even less sure if he wants to find out.

He sets the envelope with the papers on the counter in the kitchen and doesn’t touch it for a week.

Between work and the divorce Jamie nearly forgets Mels’s wedding. And suddenly it’s a few days away, and he’s got to think about packing and getting the car from the garage, and it’ll be nice to drive up to the Cape and be away from the city for a while, it’ll be nice and good for him in spite of other things, other things like Amy being there, being beautiful and happy. He starts to wonder if she’s got a boyfriend but the thought throws him into a fit of nausea and he has to push it from his mind and sit down for a second.

He’s going to show up without River, and she’ll know what’s happened and she’ll know he didn’t tell her. Which isn’t to say he hasn’t thought about telling her, that it hasn’t kept him up a night or two over the past few weeks, but what difference does it make to Amy? What happens if he speaks up? Best case scenario, they sleep together a few more times before she gets bored of him and moves on. He still entertains the notion, of course, because even that would be better than nothing, but there’s always the chance that she won’t want to see him at all. He doubts he could stand being rejected by her again.

The morning he’s supposed to leave, he wakes up in the still-largely-vacant enormity of his new apartment. The sun comes through big windows and it’s rather nice and pretty but the cleanliness overwhelms him, there’s no chaos, just him, and he wants to get a pot from the kitchen and start banging on it so he’s not by himself anymore.

He launches himself out of bed and goes downstairs and the yellow envelope is glaring at him on the kitchen counter. Screaming at him. He has to tell her.

Gingerly, he takes the papers upstairs, as if they might explode, and places them in his suitcase.  

* * *

 

The first thing he sees when he walks into the inn where they’re all staying is the back of Amy’s unfathomably ginger head at the check-in counter. Automatically, he swings around and tries to go back out, but the valet is already pulling away with his car. A totally irrational instinct, but he could’ve driven once around the parking lot or something to buy time. Slowly, like he might go unnoticed, he crosses the lobby to get in line behind her.

And he maybe slightly stands a smidge too close, because when she turns around they make full-body contact, foreheads smacking together, all very undignified. He backs off, muttering about a thousand apologies, and she stares at him in surprise for a second before processing his identity: “Jamie!”

“Hi,” he says, with an unsteady smile. He’s definitely blushing, the tips of his ears feel hot.

“Hey, Jamie, I’m sorry about that.” He shrugs. “How are you?” She looks sort of flustered, still, it’s a good look on her. _All looks are good looks on her_.

Jamie nods with more enthusiasm than necessary. “Fine. I’m fine. Working a lot, semester ends in a couple of weeks, going to have fun grading. How are you? How’s the new profession going? You look great.” Oh, oops.

She bites her lip, probably to keep from laughing at him. “I’m good too. Work is good. I should probably get out of the way so you can get checked in, though.” Amy steps off to the side and he’s worried for a minute that she’ll leave, but relieved, too, he’s just terrified to mess it up again, since he’s already physically assaulted her.

He moves toward the counter, where a plump lady smiles at him. “I’m James McCrimmon, I’ve got a reservation with the… Zucker-something wedding party?” He should probably figure out who Mels is marrying sooner rather than later. Amy is still beside him, he can feel her gaze.

“Just a minute,” says the lady. He glances at Amy and tries smiling again.

“Is River here?” asks Amy politely. Or he thinks it’s politeness—but his nervousness doubles anyway. He taps the hotel counter.

“No, nope.”

“Yeah, I remembered we were going to do that SAA conference this weekend, but I wasn’t sure.” SAA—Society for American Archeology. River’s mentioned it a few times. River _had_ mentioned it a few times. “Anyway,” Amy continues. “You should meet Sophie later, she’s my guest. You’ll really like her, she’s cool.”

“Absolutely,” he says, rather perfunctorily, but he’s still feeling nervous. The hotel lady slides his room key toward him and he thanks her quickly.

“Where are you?” Amy asks, and they start toward the rooms.

“214. You?”

“203. You’re down the hall from me,” she says, giving him what’s probably supposed to be a comforting grin, but it just makes his heart beat faster.

“Cool.” They get in the elevator together. He asks, the words spilling out, “Do you know who Mels is marrying?”

Amy laughs. “No idea.”

“Good, glad I’m not alone.”

When they reach the second floor, they have to head in separate directions. She looks at him.

“See you later.”

“Of course.”

“Save me a dance?” she asks, grinning.

“I’m all yours.”

Amy winks at him and strides down the hall, her shock of clementine hair falling behind.     


	16. Preparation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m running out of stuff to say. Home stretch?

After Amy tells Martha the story of Tom’s, her doctor nods and asks, “So when are you going to try again?”

Amy rubs her eyes. “What if I just wait until I’m over him and move on?”

“Is that what you want?”

“Sort of.” Jamie is a difficult person to love, as Tom’s had reminded her. “Not really.” It had similarly reminded her that she could be a difficult person to love, too, so they were at least even on that score, and she had realized—somewhat begrudgingly—that there existed better versions of themselves, people who hadn’t been in the diner that day, compatible people. Martha looks at Amy levelly, until she flinches. “Okay, I’ll try again!”

“Good,” says Martha, smiling.

“He agreed with me, though.” _Completely crazy_. “Like, when I said that thing about having feelings for him being crazy, he was like, ‘yeah.’ So, I don’t know.”

“He said this after you’d already shut down the possibility of a relationship, right?”

“Yes,” Amy grudges.

Martha clicks her pen. “You remember when we talked about what might be going on with him?”

“Yes,” Amy grudges again.

“And I’m going to remind you anyway that if you really want this to happen, you’re going to have to be the one to help him along.” Amy nods absently, familiar with this speech. “You’re at a point of self-awareness that he hasn’t reached, so lower your defenses, don’t _scare_ him—”

“But that’s all assuming that he _does_ have feelings for me and he’s just being _stupid_ —”

“And there’s no way to know which it is until you ask him,” Martha says, in a thoroughly argument-ending tone.

“Right. Yeah.”  Amy slumps into the couch. “But I want to wait a little while.”

“I think that’s wise. I’m sure you both need a little space to breathe after that lunch. But don’t wait too long, all right?”

Amy gives her a little smile. “All right.”

* * *

 

Martha asks her about Jamie at the beginning of every session for the next month and a half, and her response is always a resounding, disappointed _not yet_.

And then it’s their last session before the wedding. Martha doesn’t open with Jamie this time.

“So,” she begins instead. “How’s the new apartment?”

“Good.” Still stacked with boxes, but Amy’s already enjoying the new environment.

“And are you looking forward to the trip this weekend?”

“Yep. Two nights in Cape Cod, should be fun.”

“Going to see your old school friends?”  
“Yep.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

Amy shrugs and jokes, “Which one?” Martha laughs.

“Rory?”

With an eye roll, she answers, “I’m over it.”

“And Jamie?” There it is.

“Yeah,” she says, unsteady.

“And what do you think I’m going to ask next?”

Amy smirks. “Am I going to talk to him?”

“Are you?”

Two days in the same hotel, at the same functions, in the general vicinity of Jamie. She can’t exactly avoid talking to him, not without seeming like a certified dickwad. And it’s not fun to go six weeks without speak to somebody who you—you know. But about the Thing?

“Amy,” says Martha, at her silence. “It would be a good time to do it. The fact that you’re both already there for a different reason could take some of the pressure off.”

Amy remains quiet for a second, plucking at cuticle. “River might be there.”

“Then ask to speak with him in private.” She imagines dragging Jamie away from his immaculately dressed wife for a private chat. “Amy, what’s the policy about excuses?”

Feeling a little bit like a schoolkid reciting her lessons, Amy repeats, “There’s always one too few.”

* * *

 She sifts through her closet, feeling that nothing—not from her collection of cocktail-club dresses, anyway—is spring-wedding-friendly. She finds a pale blue sundress she’d forgotten she had. It may not even fit; she lost weight with the depression and it’s been slow coming back.

“Pack your good underwear,” calls Sophie from the living room.

She tosses the dress into her case, the contents of which spill across the bed as though exploded, symptomatic of her indecisive packing habits. “My good underwear?” she echoes, poking her head out the door.

Sophie is sitting on the sofa with a mug. Her things wait eagerly by the door. “Yeah, your good underwear. The matching sets, everyone’s got one.”

Amy narrows her eyes. “So?”

“So what? I packed mine and I don’t want to feel like I’m trying the hardest.”

Frowning, Amy retreats into the bedroom, where she opens her underwear drawer, and then recalls that her matching sets remain somewhere among the boxes stacked in the corner of her room.

“They’re still packed,” she yells over her shoulder.

“Unpack them!”

With a groan, Amy does so, dumping the contents of an entire box into their respective drawers until she finds a couple of lacy bra-and-panties pairs at the bottom. She doesn’t remember the last time she wore one of them: fancy underwear seemed to necessitate an occasion, a time for her to feel as put-together as she looked, or maybe someone to see them, and she didn’t have either of those things. She tosses the undergarments on top of the sundress.

“Am I going to meet all of your college friends?” asks Sophie’s voice, and Amy jumps. Her roommate has appeared in the doorway of the bedroom, where she sips from her mug.

“Jesus, Soph.”

“Sorry. Answer my question?” She gives Amy a pleading smile.

“Probably.” Amy starts arranging her suitcase into something recognizably organized.

“And Jamie?”

She shoves her toiletries bag into an opening. “Probably.”

“All the more reason to be on the lookout for someone new,” says Sophie, determined despite Amy’s obvious disenchantment.

“Actually.” Amy turns to her with a pained smile. “Think I’ll just be your wingwoman, this time around.”

“That is ten times less fun.”

“Ten times? Really? What’s your unit of measurement?” She’s not sure if this is the investigative journalist in her, or she’s compensating for the absence of Jamie’s casual rationality in her life.

“Joules,” says Sophie seriously, and Amy laughs. “Come on! I had a super Christian roommate in college, I never got to prey on boys with her. You’re depriving me.”

Maybe _preying_ is what’s missing from her approach to telling Jamie. “I actually…” Amy sighs, and plops down next to her suitcase. “I’m thinking I’m going to tell Jamie how I feel this weekend, so it’s not really a good time for hook-ups.”

Sophie stares at her. “How you feel. Like.” She mouths the word _love_ and Amy groans. “Well, now I feel dumb.”

“It’s okay.”

“I didn’t know he didn’t know.” Sophie comes to sit beside her. “The wife’s not going to be there, is she?”

“Don’t know.” River has a work conflict this weekend, sure, but it’s been weeks since Amy saw the schedule, things could change, there’s no guarantee.

Sophie makes a small sound. “Well. I bet the hotel has great room service. Like, wine and chocolate cake at 2 AM for whatever reason kind of room service.” Amy sighs.

“You think?”

Sophie pats her shoulder. “Yeah.”

* * *

 

It’s a bit chilly and windy, even on the first weekend in May, but after dropping everything off in the room Amy and Sophie go for a beach stroll anyway, the shore being not two minutes from the inn. The water’s too cold for more than a toe-dip but the sun occasionally wriggles through the clouds. She thinks about the nudity of Jamie’s fingers when she saw him at check-in, and tells Sophie about some topics she’s been considering for the blog.

Back at the inn they’re served dinner in one of the big rooms, while the rehearsal dinner apparently takes place somewhere else. All the least important guests, sat together. She’s heaping mashed potatoes on to her plate at the buffet when she spies, in the corner of her eye, a familiar profile beside her.

“Hey,” says Rory, helping himself to some roast beef.

“Hey,” she says slowly.

They make it to the end of the buffet and pause there. She forces a smile.

“How is everything? I didn’t get a birth announcement, so I just…”

“He’s great.” Rory’s discomfort is painfully obvious.

“Are Jennifer—and the baby, are they—?” she asks, glancing around.

“No, no. Three hour flight with a six-month-old for two nights, didn’t seem like the thing to do.”

Amy nods. Should she ask for a photo? Rory is looking at his dinner dejectedly. She can see Sophie eyeing her from their table. He hasn’t even asked how she is. “Well,” Amy says. “Enjoy the festivities, I guess.”   

She’s made it two steps when he says, “So that’s it?” Amy stops.

“What?”

“That’s all we’re going to say.”

There’s a Harry Connick Junior song playing faintly over the PA system, no dance floor, and paper plates. People are scattered around too many round, white-clothed tables; most of the guests aren’t even arriving until tomorrow, she guesses. It’s like the faintest echo of a high school dance, yet Rory’s chosen _this moment_ to have a serious conversation. She scans him briefly but his expression is just hard, older than she remembers, that sentimental spite flickering somewhere underneath.

“You know, Rory, I’m pretty sure there’s not much else _to_ say.” And, with a smile that feels surprisingly more friendly than smug, she marches back to her table.

“Who was that?” asks Sophie, her plate already half-cleared.

“My ex-fiancé.”

Her roommate does something resembling a spit-take, and very undignified, which gets a laugh out of Amy. “You were _engaged_?” She says this loudly enough to attract some wary looks from the nearby tables.

“To him. Twice.” She starts into her meat rather aggressively.

“If you ever get another roommate,” Sophie begins, having regained some poise. “You should put together a file on all your like, past romantic endeavors, so there won’t be any surprises along the way.”

“Gotcha.” The phrase falls effortlessly, meaninglessly, from her lips.

“I’m not missing any others, am I?”

“Nope, those are the big two.” A bony nurse and a cheerful nerd. Not the great loves she’d imagined for herself at seventeen.

“You know.” Sophie grins into her wine glass. “It really is too bad you’ve sworn off all the men at this thing, because there’s a guy over there who hasn’t taken his eyes off you since we sat down.” With a hint of dread, Amy follows Sophie’s gaze, and it’s just as she suspected: Jamie. He’s sitting with Craig—who looks to have lost a considerable amount of weight over the years, she notes—and appears to be engrossed in their conversation, but there’s no missing the way his gaze plummets to the table as she’s turning to look over.

Hope and fear flood her speedily enough to turn her mouth dry, and she must make a noise or something, because Sophie’s suddenly alarmed. “What? What’s the matter?”

“That’s Jamie.”

Sophie gapes at her. “Oh. _Oh_.” Amy’s appetite has left her. “I—I’m sorry, _wow_ ,” gushes Soph. “He—wow.” He’s not subtle. He’s never been subtle. It’s not more staring she needs, it’s words, _Jamie_ , like an actual confirmation. “And who’s that with him?” her roommate whispers, for some reason.

“That’s Craig, they roomed at school.”

“Oh. Well,” she shrugs. “They’re both pretty cute, at least.”

Amy gets to her feet. “Want to take like a million cookies from the dessert table and go up to the room and get something terrible on pay-per-view?”

Sophie follows her, grinning again. “You had me at a million cookies.”

* * *

 

She spends twenty minutes on her make-up the next morning, not because she’s trying harder than usual for this occasion—killer eye shadow isn’t going to be the thing that wins Jamie over—but the slow strokes of the applicator are calming and the confidence will do her good. She wears her hair down, in loose curls, with a few strands pulled back and pinned.

A little while later, she and Sophie take their seats. The ceremony, which looks like it should be a traditional, flowery outdoor affair with the coast at the couple’s backs, is due to start in fifteen minutes. So far only the priest looks to have gathered by the altar, but the sun is out and it’s nice and warm so Amy doesn’t care about the schedule. She has yet to see Mels in the flesh since she got here, which is a little weird to think about. The next time she speaks to her friend—for the first time in a couple of years, since they had dinner when she visited New York on business—Mels will be married. Rory will be married, Jamie will be married. Her three closest friends from college. Amy picks at her cuticle and then turns to Sophie, intending to start a conversation.

But then the air shifts, as a familiar body settles into the chair on her opposite side.

“Hi,” says Jamie breathlessly. “Can we sit with you?”

Craig has taken the chair down from Jamie, and he leans over to wave at them. “Hi Amy. Hi Amy’s friend.”

“Sure,” she says, biting her lip and then remembering her lipstick and then panicking slightly about getting lipstick on her teeth. “Hi Craig. This is Sophie.”

“Hello,” chirps Sophie, as they shake hands over Amy and Jamie’s laps.

“Amy,” says Jamie, somehow lower and closer than she expected, and with his arm around the back of her chair—it brushes her bare skin—she shivers. “I think Mels is marrying a woman.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh,” she manages, honestly shocked. “Oh,” she repeats, with some delight. “Idris is a woman.” She hadn’t though much of that name on the card, but now it all seems quite obvious.

And Idris is indeed a woman, a tall brunette with some of the biggest hair Amy’s ever seen, and she looks absolutely blissful next to Mels. Each bride has her own legion of bridesmaids and her own entrance and her own incredible white gown.

The vows and kisses and applause fly by, maybe because she’s so consistently preoccupied with the same nakedness of Jamie’s ring finger that nagged her the night before. She tries, really very desperately, to avoid speculation: his bare hands don’t mean anything, and even if they did, his feelings toward River aren’t important. His feelings toward her, that’s the issue.

* * *

 

At the reception, she chugs many glasses of champagne just to get at the strawberries on the bottom. It is somehow, magically, 8 o’clock, and she’s slumped on a chair toward the back of the room. The band has been going for three hours now, and she figures they’ve got to call it quits sometime. Sophie and Craig are still dancing; they’ve danced every song together. She keeps seeing Jamie out of the corner of her eye, occasionally finding his way on to the dance floor for an upbeat number, but vanishing the rest of the time. Amy danced a couple with Mels for old time’s sake, and then there was the champagne. She can feel it fading now, but the desire to stand hasn’t found her.

“Hi,” says Jamie, settling beside her.

“Jesus,” she starts. “You’ve got to stop just like, popping up out of nowhere.”

“Sorry,” he says, but he’s grinning. “Are you ready for that dance?”

She can feel her mouth hanging open slightly as she looks at him. His suit is nice, she doesn’t recognize it. Someone must’ve helped him pick it out. River, maybe. Or the personal shopper at Bergdorf, who knows. “Sure.”

“It’s a slow one, it’ll be good.” Their hands linked, he leads her to the floor.

“You want to slow dance with me?” she asks, derisive, as his hands fall easily to her hips.

“Yes.” He’s frowning at her, a little notch between his brows, but he says it without much difficulty. She can feel herself blushing. He’s close enough for her to catch the heat off his body.

“Oh.”

“Do you not want to slow dance with me?”

“I just didn’t think slow dance would be our thing.”

“But you want to?”

This conversation all seems rather pointless since they’re already in the midst of a very, very slow dance. Barely a dance at all, more like a coordinated sway.  

“Yeah,” she mumbles, and she rests her head on his shoulder. 

“Good. Thanks.” His breath is hot on her neck. _Thanks_.

Now’s the time. It feels like he’s arranged this moment for a love confession. But she’s extremely comfortable, swaying in tandem, with his warmth seeping through the suit his wife probably picked out, to a song she can’t place, so she’ll let it go until the music stops. And then they can turn the lights back on.

“Dancing like this makes me feel old,” she whispers loudly, and he laughs, trembling against her.

“We’re not old. We’re thirty. That’s barely anything.” Three decades on this earth. Jesus.

“When did we start being thirty?” She pulls away to look at him. Her birthday had been a few months ago, but she’d told nobody. It’s a kind of existential question. She was twenty-one yesterday, she was drunk and lying on a lawn and hitting on this same man.

“I don’t know,” he says, smiling. “I think I forgot my birthday.”

“Well.” Amy settles back against his shoulder. “Happy birthday. You’re ancient.”

“You too.” She feels his lips press the hair above her ear.

The band picks out the last few chords of the song. Amy steps back from him, her stomach suddenly sour. She holds his hands in hers, but then he drops them, and she looks at him curiously. He’s gone pale, and he stands there staring at her with his mouth hanging open. The terrible anticipation is gone; concern rushes her. 

“Jamie,” she says, but he’s already walking away, weaving through what people remain on the dance floor.

Amy’s frozen well into the next song, until Sophie comes up and touches her arm.

“I think I’ll shower and go to bed.” She snaps out of her trance before Sophie can even speak.

“Is everything okay?” her friend asks, plainly pleading. Craig is behind her, looking equally shaken. They must’ve seen Jamie run off.

“Everything’s fine.” She gives them both a big smile. “Have a good night, you two.” Shaking off Sophie’s arm, she leaves them without glancing back.

* * *

 

The shower feels more like a ritualistic drowning. She’s in there until she’s an absolute prune, until the air in the bathroom is so thick with moisture she can’t breathe. She pads out to see if Sophie’s returned, but the hotel room is empty. Good; it’s no knock to her roommate, but alone is what she feels right now and she’d like to be it, too.

Except, she realizes, the room’s not entirely empty.

On the carpet by the door—apparently slid underneath—is a large yellow envelope. With one hand holding the towel around her body, she bends down to grab it, and then sits on the bed. Upon turning it over, she sees that the word _sorry_ has been scrawled across it in large, familiar handwriting. Her heart flinches, quickens.

With shaky fingers, she has some trouble undoing the little metal closure, but finally she gets it, and slides out a stack of papers. Atop the first sheet is a post-it, with a note from him:

_Pond,_

_By the pool. Will stay until midnight. Chat? If you want._

And no signature. Gulping, she peels away the note, and surveys the first page. It’s a jumble at first, certain words popping out at her—Jamie and River’s names, petitioner and respondent, the New York County Court of Common Pleas. Dissolution of marriage. A stamp reading _Filed_. Her shaking doesn’t stop.

She doesn’t need to look anymore, she decides, and slips the papers back into the envelope. Does she always breathe this loudly? It sounds like a hurricane in her chest.

_By the pool. Will stay until midnight_. Her teeth are digging into her lip so hard she fears she’ll draw blood.

The moment is complicated. Her jeans are hanging out of her suitcase, and she could throw them on with a t-shirt and she could go. Or she could stay here, and be quietly furious with him, and even more quietly relieved, and silently overjoyed. But what would it do? The papers don’t mean much. The papers, again, are he and River. And she’s not the inverse of his marriage. And he should know that.

She pulls on her clothes and tries to towel some of the water from her hair. Before she leaves, she takes the envelope and hugs it, so it’s covering her chest and her gut, and goes to find the pool. 


	17. Push

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written over the span of less than 24 hours and during the worst travel experience of my life, but hopefully you can’t tell.

Jamie is sitting on the end of a reclining pool chair, arms dangling off his knees, eyes fixed vacantly on the water. All the overhead lamps are off so the wriggling blue light from the pool fills the room, reminiscent. He looks different and she realizes he’s changed clothes: the black Ramones t-shirt from Christmas hangs off his thinner-than-she-remembers frame. It’s a size too big, but she hadn’t expected him to wear it. When he sees her he smiles, and not his usual smile that’s all resilient optimism, but a little relieved smile, and then a terrified one. A terrified smile. It seems inexplicable but Amy understands completely.

She perches on an adjacent chair. “You really shouldn’t go around sticking your important legal documents under random hotel doors.” The far side of the room has glass walls, and a light on the beach is just visible past the condensation from the artificially warmed water. “Someone could like, steal your identity.”

“Nobody wants my identity.” She laughs dryly. “And besides, I didn’t stick it under a random door, I stuck it under your door,” he adds, with a hardness that’s almost unwilling, burning up his last bit of fight. They both know what’s coming, she supposes, and his need to expel the remaining resistance makes sense. She’s there, too; she’s been there for six weeks. Pressing back against what’s inevitable and good but tremendously scary nonetheless. They’re speaking some emotional language only they can comprehend, but between the two of them it’s clear as the water in the pool at their feet, and she hasn’t a shred of frustration.

“Okay.” She lays the envelope across her lap, where the word _sorry_ stares up at her. “I like the shirt,” she says, reaching over to brush an invisible bit of lint from his shoulder.

“One of the patches fell off my jacket,” he admits.

“Seriously?” He nods. “Patches no more, I guess. Can you get it fixed?”

“Don’t know.”

“That’s too bad.” Amy licks her lips. Enough stalling. “What did you want to talk about?” A kind of unnecessary question, but it’ll help him get started.

“I wanted…” Jamie starts fumbling in his back pocket. “I made some notes. I was just worried, I was worried—” He pulls out several sheets of loose hotel stationary, and immediately looses a few of them to the nonexistent breeze. “That you’d get here and I would forget everything, so I made some notes.” Amy sits there with a hand over her mouth to hide her grin as he gets to his feet and chases down the errant papers. “Okay.” He reseats himself and meets her eye for the first time since she arrived, and then trains his gaze on the paper.

“Okay,” she repeats. She’s oddly calm. Her stomach isn’t twisted, her heart beats steadily and only a smidge faster than usual. She clasps her hands in her lap.

“It’s a list of things I need to apologize for,” he begins. He speaks like he’s reading a difficult passage from a book. “For my lack of discretion and control in our friendship, which was not fair to you or—or to River. I assumed that my being married would preclude the possibility of…” And here he sighs heavily. “Developing feelings for another person.” An incredible heat materializes on the back of her neck. Jamie is still talking. “This was not the case, and while I understand that in spite of my—willfulness—you most likely don’t reciprocate—” What a stupid man. “—it was nonetheless wrong of me to give myself so readily to someone without considering how said reciprocation could potentially impact her life.” A really stupid man. He swallows.

“I’m not sure I know what that means,” Amy says, biting back a laugh. It’s not so much amusement as delight.

Jamie’s face remains tragic, probably because she hasn’t said her thing yet. He glances at her, open-mouthed and near tears, maybe, making her resultant grin all the more inappropriate, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “It means I know you don’t love me but I’m sorry for how it could’ve hurt you if you did.” Okay, so maybe her stomach is a little twisted. “It was my marriage, it was my responsibility to draw the line, and I didn’t. Because.” And maybe her heart beats more than a little faster. “You’re Amy Pond. How could I resist?”

Amy shoves her fist against her mouth to keep her grin under wraps until he’s done.

“So.” He inhales deeply and flips to the next page. “For all the time I begged you to spend with me. The plane ticket. For the amount of money I spent on coffee, which you don’t owe me.” She laughs, breaking her self-restraint. “Asking you to Portland. Asking you to share a bed with me, that was very inappropriate and selfish.”

Amy shakes her head. “No, that was—”

“It was,” he insists, looking up at her. “It was too much. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think it’s all that weird to need some comfort when your mother’s just died.” Normally she wouldn’t fight him, because he looks about ready to break in two, but she remembers her sessions with Martha, and the point at which self-awareness can verge dangerously into self-loathing.

His brow furrows. “I indulged myself.”

“Yes,” she nods, and he slumps over. “But that doesn’t mean that everything that happened was indulgent.” This seems to confuse him, and she can see him searching her face, but she just smiles. “At least not _self_ -indulgent.”

He shakes his head and goes back to his list, sounding hoarse. “I’m sorry I kissed you. I’m sorry I never said no. I’m sorry that I don’t regret any of it, because it would have made me a better husband and a better son, a better friend, if I did, but I can’t—” The paper crinkles as his grip tightens. She’s ready for him to stop talking but she knows, too, that he’s got to finish. “I can’t. I loved it. It was so wonderful. It was the best and worst week of my life. All the most incredibly uplifting and terrible things about existing, shoved together like that, but I only ever think about what was good. And that was you.” He pauses to compose himself, and Amy peers curiously at him.

“Is there a lot more?”

“A little.” Jamie clears his throat. “I’m sorry for what I said at lunch, even though I didn’t lie. I said it was crazy with full knowledge that I am a crazy person.” Amy breaks down giggling at this, and she can feel him smiling at her—he hasn’t smiled since he started speaking—which makes her laugh even harder. “Glad I amuse you, Pond.”

“You do.” She bites her lip. “You’re hilarious. And adorable.” That catches his attention and his head tilts to the side, lips parted in a wordless question. “Sometimes,” Amy corrects. “In the right light.”

As if he’d rather continue on then try to understand her, Jamie returns to the paper. “For not calling. For what happened at the reception. And lastly, for how long it took me to apologize.” With that, he folds up the list and sticks it back into his pocket, as if he might need it again soon.

“You forgot one,” she says.

He stares at her, his fear apparent. “I did?”

“Yes.” Deep breath. “You forgot to apologize for not asking me how I felt about you. Feel about you.” He continues to stare, in confusion now more than fear. “And I forgot too. So I’m sorry I never asked. I’m going to do it now, okay?”

“Okay,” he says slowly.

“Jamie.” She looks him squarely in the eye, feeling a little like a cheat but also not really caring because in ten minutes it’ll be better, everything will, and it’ll only sort of matter what it took to get them here. “Do you have feelings for me?”

In spite of his misguided hopelessness, he smiles at the concrete beneath their feet.  “Yes.”

She nudges his knee. “Now you.”

“Please don’t.” His head is suddenly in his hands, and she’s reminded of that morning in Portland, but he’s just being stubborn and stupid, now.

“Ask me,” she presses.

“Amy.”

“Just do it.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Trust me, you do.”

It must finally occur to him what she’s been hinting at the entire conversation, and he asks, with some urgency, “Do you have feelings for me?”

“Yes,” says Amy, and she grins.

He sits there looking at her for an hour—it must be an hour, a person can’t feel everything that crosses Jamie’s fcae just then in anything less than an hour, she’s sure—and then he says, “Oh.”

“That was why I left.” He’s spent so much time explaining himself, the least she can do is reveal her actions in kind. “After we slept together. It’d been such a long time since I was happy like that, I didn’t know what to do. Scared, I guess.” She examines her palms. “It was bad. I bet it looked horrible to you, I understand why you thought I didn’t… yeah. I’m sorry.”

When she looks up, Jamie is shaking his head. “Don’t apologize. It was my fault.”

A sort of déjà vu grips her. With a glare, she grabs his hand. “Hey. We’re not going to do that.” Jamie gives her a look, but she doesn’t back down; this time it’ll be right, she swears. “I made a mistake. And all that stuff you did? I never tried to stop you, or to figure out if you were—I don’t know, I just let it happen because I wanted it, too. And you need to be ready to say that I fucked up when I did.” His reluctance is still clear. “I’m not perfect, Jamie.”

“You are,” he mutters.

“No,” she says, gripping his hand tighter. “I’m not. Don’t tell me I’m perfect, tell me I’m not and you love me anyway. I don’t want you to worship me, Jamie, I want you to love me.” You can’t love a perfect thing, it’s like loving a slab of marble.

“I do love you.” He sounds quite offended that she’d ever suggest otherwise, and she believes him, but he’s missing the point. She sits back, releasing his hand.

“So tell me when I hurt you.”

His face contorts into an expression of such pain that she’s nauseated. “I don’t want to do that.” But she remembers Martha, remembers that speech about clarity and helping him, she knows it by heart.

“Please. I need you to.”

They sit in silence for a minute. She can barely hear him when he finally speaks, and he doesn’t look at her. “When you got engaged.”

Her mouth pops open. She hadn’t even thought about that. He’s quiet, maybe waiting for her response or approval or something, so she tries. “Yeah. That was dumb. You know,” Amy gulps. “When I broke it off, I told him I loved you. Doesn’t really make it better, but.”

His lips twitch, a small smile. “It does a little. At least I wasn’t imagining things.”

“Well. You’re the person I needed to tell.”

The smile broadens. “I would’ve liked that.”

“Yeah. Sorry.” She breathes: not bad so far. “What else?”

He says, with some difficulty, “When you left Portland.” She knew, of course. The look on his face when she’d done it had been a sufficient clue. But it kills her to hear it from his lips, and she supposes that’s the point. He’s been killing himself over everything he did and it’s only fair for her to face the same heat of accusation.

“I think.” Her voice sounds fraught. “I could apologize for that until I’m blue in the face, and I still wouldn’t be able to tell you how angry I am at myself for screwing it up.” It takes all of her willpower not to regress, not to think some stupid loathsome thought about her how little she deserves this man, but he takes her hand in his, this time, and they’re even.

“I forgave you a while ago,” he says, his thumb tracing the lines on her palm. “For what happened at the diner, too. I was just as bad.”

“That was a pretty mutual fuck-up,” she agrees. They’re closer now and their knees touch across the gap between the pool chairs.

“Can I be done now?” he asks.

“Yeah. Class dismissed,” Amy laughs.

“How was I?”

“Good.” She sweeps some of the hair from his face. “And we’re going to this when we do dumb stuff, yeah? We’re going to sit down and say exactly what the problem is.”

 His forehead comes to rest against hers, but he keeps looking down at their hands. “Yeah.”

“So,” she says. “We love each other. We are—in love.”

“Yeah,” he repeats, and she can hear him grinning.

“Your divorce was finalized two weeks ago.” He pulls away, suddenly disgruntled. “And your mom just died.”

“So? What does that have to do with anything?”

She smiles to reassure him. “I just mean, maybe it should be a slow thing. Like we wait ‘til we’re back in New York and we like… go on a date.” For some reason this sounds like the worst idea ever, even though they’ve been on a thousand outings that escaped the date label only by virtue of their unwillingness to use such grown-up words.

Jamie snorts. “You and me on a date?”

She shrugs, agreeing. “Okay, so we’ll do what we always do but with making out.”

“Excellent,” he murmurs. The space between their lips has been shrinking and now, by whose volition she doesn’t exactly know, it’s gone. Their mouths barely move, and neither of them seems particularly interested in tongue; they’re just happy to be kissing each other again.   

She can feel herself salivating when they break apart, but she’s Amy Pond and she’s a grown-up now, she kind of sort of goes on dates, and she knows how to exercise self-control. “No more until we’re home, okay?” she says, and Jamie groans, which shouldn’t be as hot as it is. Gritting her teeth, Amy gets to her feet. “It’s late, let’s walk upstairs together.”

He trudges after, but doesn’t relent: “You know, it’s _my_ divorce and _my_ mother—”

She starts turning around to argue with him, but he really is right behind her, and her shoulder makes firm contact with his chest—which sends Jamie tilting backwards, and then into the pool.

The splash ladles water on to the concrete and her bare feet, and Amy shrieks, then stands there with both hands over her mouth, watching the rivers running off Jamie’s hair and clothes as he struggles to stand in the shallow pool.

“Pond!”

“I’m sorry,” she cries. The fall has knocked his notes from his pocket, and they float nearby until he snatches them up. As he sloshes to the edge and pulls himself out of the water, Amy grabs a couple of towels from the dispenser by the door, and comes to wrap one around his shoulders. “Sorry, sorry.”

Jamie slicks back his sopping hair and grins. “Off to a good start.” She laughs, and all the while he starts to shiver. “Have they got the air on in here?”

“Yeah, come on.” She takes his hand and they start for the door. “You need to get those clothes off.” She pauses. “Obviously not in front of me, or because we’re, going to, you know—”

“I’m _cold_!” he quite shouts at her.

“Right, yeah, sorry!” Amy throws open the door, and they’re met with another wall of air conditioning, and Jamie whimpers behind her. They head down the hall to the elevator, his soaked-through shoes squelching with each step. She slaps the call button several times and then turns to smile apologetically at him.

“What’re you two _doing_?” asks a voice, and suddenly Mels is standing there, still in her frock from the reception, holding a bottle of champagne. Amy drops Jamie’s hand immediately, remembering too late that their relationship is no longer taboo.

“Amy pushed me into the pool,” he declares.

“ _Accidentally_.”

Mels smirks. “Yeah, I gathered it was something like that.”  

“I didn’t push you,” Amy insists. “It was like, an unintentional knock. You’re just too weak to stay balanced.”

“Oh, really?” he growls, with a playful step towards her. “Bet I could unbalance you.”

Color fills Amy’s cheeks, but she keeps glaring. “I’ll take that bet.” 

“Wow,” Mels interjects, loud and dry, startling them both. “Glad I’m not interrupting you two trying to have sex again.” Amy’s blush deepens and Jamie turns to the arriving elevator.

“Have a good night, Mels,” Amy manages. She and Jamie step inside. “Congrats!”

Mels waves at them as the doors close. “Don’t break anything.”

Jamie’s shivering continues in the elevator. They don’t look at each other.

Through chattering teeth, he says, “I know we aren’t going to—”

“No. I know you know. It’s fine.”

He nods. “Cool. And it’s good, I really don’t mind—”

“I know you don’t mind,” she says, smiling. If there’s one thing memorable about Jamie, it’s his ever-complicated relationship with sex.

“Before.” He sighs as a particularly pronounced shiver runs down his body. “I was thinking you could just come up and—hang out, or something.” The elevator opens on their floor, and they step out into the hall, the point where they’ll part to head for their rooms. “I sort of. I’ve sort of missed you.”

She stares at him, and then feigns gruffness to disguise the horrible mushy feeling this sentiment gives her. “Well. I did push you into a pool, least I could do is set out some pajamas or make you some tea. I guess.”

He grins through what’s clearly an impressive amount of discomfort. “I’d like that.”

They reach his door, and he starts trying to get the keycard from his front pocket, but his hands shake so hard he can’t get his fingers in the opening.

Amy sighs. “Here, come here.” And she promptly shoos his hands away and slips her own in. Jamie yelps, but she tosses him a glare. “Oh, shut up. It’s not like I haven’t felt you up before.” After a second of fumbling against the indeed very chilly, damp fabric, she retrieves the card. “Besides, we both know you’re not getting hard right now.”

He half-laughs, half-chokes as she unlocks the door. “You, Amy, are—” She’s grinning and he rushes past her, and into the bathroom, crying, “I want a hot shower!” He shuts the door and she hears the water start.

Amy takes a moment to paw through his suitcase for what looks like a fresh pajama set, and then collapses back on to the bed. His jacket—and its mangled patch—are lying on the bedspread near her, and she sniffs them curiously. To her surprise, the tweed smells about as good as he does, without a hint of the mustiness she’d expect from a ten-year-old piece of clothing.

Something’s been nagging at her, and she realizes, finally: in the rush to save Jamie, she’s left the divorce papers by the pool. Making all sorts of unpleasant noises, she drags herself up from the bed and goes to stand by the bathroom door. “Jamie, we left the papers by the pool. I’m going to go get them, okay?”

But the only response from the bathroom is a muffled, “What?”

She rolls her eyes and throws open the bathroom door, intending to shout at him, but shuts it again very quickly. The shower walls are clear glass, it turns out. Transparent.

 _Fuck_.

Jamie doesn’t seem to have noticed. “Amy? Is everything okay?” he calls.

She sucks in a deep breath. The divorce papers can wait. The waiting can wait. “Just a second!” She pulls her shirt over her head, and starts at the closure on her jeans.

  


	18. Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not going to say this chapter is pointless smut, but it is 80% about sex, and important conversations are had in the context of sex. But if you don’t think you want to read 4000+ words of and about said sex, you could get away with not reading this chapter. Or reading the last 500 words of it. Your choice. I also sort of wanted to cover all my bases so I wouldn't have to return to sex in detail in the last two chapters, ja feel?

Amy lastly discards her underwear and slips into the bathroom so as not to disturb Jamie. She feels more naked than she is naked, because there’s a kind of figurative nudity too, maybe because she’s propositioning, and not subtly, the man to whom she’s just declared her love. The potential for embarrassment runs high here—though no one is going to be any more embarrassed than Jamie, realistically. On any other day he’d probably claim he showers in swim trunks; in the shower there are no boxer or blankets to maintain the mystery of what’s not really a mystery. Like, at all.   

“I’ll be out soon,” he shouts. With his back mostly to her, he doesn’t notice the ginger, nude, staring figure who’s appeared in his bathroom.

The view is as it was when she cracked the door open moments before. The steam from the shower distorts everything from the waist down, but the vague fleshy suggestion is there, and she can see his neck and shoulders perfectly through the glass, even the sheets and splinters of water sluicing down his back. Amy takes a moment to watch and breathe, hoping the lights will be kind to her, and pulls open the shower door.

In a series of incoherent yelps, he turns to her and then away again, leaned over and with his hands trying to conceal his crotch. Amy tries not to laugh but can’t help herself.

“Amy!” His voice has shot up octaves.

“I changed my mind,” she says, grinning.

“Amy,” he repeats. “This is the  _shower_.”

“You really are a genius.” She steps into the spacious stall. Jamie’s still got the head pelting water on to him, but some flecks of moisture find her, and she’s filled with the desire to soak. “Move over.”

Too shocked to protest, he scoots away, still shielding himself. Amy steps under the stream and starts to wet her hair.

After a moment, he asks, hoarse, “Why are you in here?” He won’t meet her eyes, but between the redness in his cheeks and the sheen of water on his skin, he looks good. Good enough to fuck, at least.

“Told you. Changed my mind. Waiting can wait. Plus, you know what’s not grown-up?” Jamie glances at her and his gaze gets stuck, so she figures she must not look too bad herself. “Denial.”

“What are you talking about?” He must know, from the way he’s taking in the water rushing over her tits.

Amy grins and ducks her face under the stream for a moment, where the heat is painful and invigorating. “You know what I’m talking about.” Jamie shuts his eyes. She waits, running her fingers through her hair. “Has anyone ever told you that you’ve got a cute butt?” she asks conversationally.

Jamie makes a little sound and looks at her. “Let’s dry off.” There’s a low note in his voice, something she thinks might be desire, but even after all these years she’s not really sure how desire sounds coming from Jamie.

“Oh, no. I meant here.”

He stares at her. “But. Here—it. What?”

“It’ll be like the porn version of what happened earlier.” She’s biting back the smuggest smile, enjoying this far too much. “It’s wet and hot and we’re putting it all out there. Or, we would be, if you’d—” Amy swats his hands away and he groans but doesn’t protest. He’s more—prepared—than she expected and she sucks her lip, maybe gazing too openly, because he glares at her.

“I don’t want to be involved in anything that could be described as porn.”

She rolls her eyes. “No, I mean like—if we were a movie or a story or something, there’s always a porn rip-off, like—I don’t know. Why are we even talking about this? I want to fuck.” Amy wraps her arms around his neck and pulls them together. He fits easily against her, hardness pressing her thigh, his head tucked into the crook of her neck. 

But Jamie protests still: “It’s slippery. And how’m I supposed to—”

“The wall,” she mutters.

“Won’t you be uncomfortable? The bed—”

“Aren’t pain and pleasure the same endorphin or something? What kind of scientist are you?” She feels him laugh against her skin.

“Not a biologist.” Jamie presses a kiss to her earlobe, and then to her jaw, with the same kind of tender care that she imagines people use when painting very small things, and it draws a sigh out of her.

“You know enough about biology for me, gotta say.” His hands have begun to roam her back, fingertips chasing sloppy patterns.

“Condom,” he murmurs.

“No.” She’s had a motionless erection against her for far too long now, and he’s kissing her neck rather steadily, and she doesn’t think she’ll last another ten seconds, let alone the five or ten minutes it’ll take them to get out of the shower, find a rubber somewhere in his luggage—if he’s even got one, which he likely doesn’t—so even worse, having to go beg one off Sophie or Craig, who might not even have any to spare, from the way they’ve been looking at each other all night—by the time they got back in the shower he’d be soft from the logistics of it all and she’d have changed her mind again. “Not tonight.” Tonight’s not like the last time, anyway; Portland was all patient anticipation and giddy forgetfulness, taking their time so as not to wake up too soon; tonight is urgent. Yes, it’s urgency that coils between her legs, dizzying her.

“Amy,” he cautions.

“It’s fine.” She toys with the damp ringlets on the back of his neck and feels his hands press her harder. “I’m on the pill. It’ll be fine.” To end the conversation, she pulls away from him and pushes back against the shower wall, grinning as she spreads her legs slightly, an invitation.

With an unexpectedly forceful groan, he moves in, wrapping her in a long, slow kiss. It’s a very Jamie-ish kiss, she knows how he likes them, all warm and wet and smooth, like he’s savoring every flick of her tongue. She could tell him, maybe, that he doesn’t need to be so careful, because he’ll have plenty of opportunities to kiss her again, for a long time, possibly forever—but even the precipice of that thought is too much right now, and she kisses him back hard to push it from her brain.

“We’re probably wasting a lot of water doing this,” he mutters when they part for breath. The shower does continue to run, the water barely stroking Jamie’s back. “Not very ecologically friendly.”

“We’ll plant a fucking tree,” she growls, and pulls his hands down to her thighs. Taking the hint,  _thank Jesus_ , he lifts her gently by the legs. His arms strain with the effort, but not as much as she’d have guessed, which means he’s stronger than she gives him credit for. Amy tries to stifle her opinion of this discovery, mostly because Jamie’s smirking a little as he presses a knee to the tile to prop her up, like he can read the thoughts about Manliness that she desperately doesn’t want to have because she’s progressive and shit. Taking charge of her sexual agency. Not needing her men big and strong, except in the cock department. But it’s definitely a point for him in the turn-on competition.

They kiss again and she’s waiting what feels like a million and one years, before his grip on her ass tightens and he slides into her.

The sensation is headier than she remembers, the angle and the strange clash of hot and cold as her skin meets the tile behind her. “Shit,” she hears herself say, and Jamie’s head snaps up.

“Is that okay? Did I hurt you? Amy, I’m—” He starts to move away, but she digs her fingers into the slippery skin of his lower back.

“If you pull out I’ll strangle you. And not in the sexy way, in the real way.”

Jamie starts to laugh and falls into her, and she sighs noisily. “You should start telling me what you like.” His mouth is right by her ear. “So I can do it again.”

“I like your dick.” This is the first thing that pops into her head and she doesn’t regret it, because he gives a little with his hips in reply, and she whimpers.

“Just tell me what’s okay.” How is he still just chatting? “What you want. I’ll do it.” His fingers slick over one of her breasts, and then the other, and her eyes flutter closed.

“I want you to shut up and fuck me.” So Amy says what she’s essentially been waiting ten years to say, and it feels about as good as him being inside her right now. “And also.” She can’t help pushing the still-damp hair from his face. “Same goes for you.”

Jamie gapes at her, surprisingly moved by this offer. “Whatever I want?”

“Yeah.” She presses her lips to his temple as he’s quiet for a while, struggling with her offer. It takes all her remaining patience not to rush him, but she gets to busy herself nipping at his collarbone, at least.

“I want—” He speaks finally, and swallows hard, she can hear it. “I want—nothing, just…”

“Tell me,” Amy insists, wrapping her legs around his waist to pull him deeper. She feels a twinge of concern, mostly to do with that one guy she dated five years ago who asked her to stick a finger up his butt, which she was  _not_  about in the slightest.

His gaze flies to the ceiling. “Say my name?” Say his name! “When you’re…” 

 _Say his name_. When she comes. When  _she_  comes. Amy guffaws. “That’s what you’re embarrassed about? I’ll probably do that anyway, I was worried you’d take me up on that choking thing.”

“Hush up, Pond,” he says, but he’s smiling.

Amy mirrors the grin. “Make me.”

His mouth against her does the quieting, it’s true, and he starts to move his hips. He’s a little too timid at first, no doubt fretting about her comfort or some softie bullshit, but it’s different enough from bed fucking to leave her in small fits of sighing, him hitting places she didn’t remember men could hit. He drags his lip down to her neck to lavish kisses there, and she mock moans, “Jamie, Jamie!” to a peal of laughter from him. The hilarity pauses his motions.

“I thought you were hushing up, Pond.”

“Thought you didn’t want me to. Besides,” she says, digging her nails into his back and earning a gasp. “I think I could make some noise. If you really  _tried_ , that is.” She purses her lips to hide a smile while his eyes narrow.

“I am…” He starts to argue and then reconsiders the time this might take, or so she guesses. Suddenly a man of action, Jamie thrusts into her with a grunt and enough force to make her cry out, and she pleads silently that he won’t stop to ask if he’s hurting her, because he’s really,  _really_ not. He continues at this pace, which is a little slow but hard as she can remember him fucking her, harder than any moment in Portland. She can feel all the way down to her toes, almost, the need that percolates through her blood, and she does her best to buck her hips, urging him on. She’s not sure where the pressure of the hard tile against her back falls on the sensation scale, but she’s also pretty sure it’s helping more than it’s hurting, like a little pain rounds out the sex palette.

“Do you like this?” he mumbles, the strain of motion weighing on the words. His breath brushes her cheek.

She manages a “yes,” but it’s more of a squeak than a coherent affirmation.

And then it’s there, the root of orgasm, the tightening of muscles, but it’ll die if not tended—and so he speeds up, bracing himself with an arm on the wall behind her, and their foreheads meeting, smearing sweat across brows. His eyes are screwed shut in concentration.

Maybe it’s just the heat of the moment, but she swears what washes over her when she comes is more tsunami than wave; it’s an enormous pleasure, it shreds her, she swears she’ll be in pieces by the time it’s over. Jamie moves through it like he doesn’t even notice the sounds she can’t help making, and on some plane of consciousness it frustrates her that he’s so unaffected while she’s coming rather violently, and so she does the thing she can to trip him up. “Jamie,” she whispers, though it’s as raspy and half-formed, all she can manage. “ _Jamie_ ,” she repeats, louder, liking the feeling of it on her lips, requested or otherwise. He slows down and then slams in, biting back a shout as he comes, and tries to thrust through a few more times until her orgasm’s died down. It’s quiet while they catch their breaths and she grapples for some coherent thought, hanging from his neck, rubbery.

After a while, he sucks in a deep breath and drops his head to her shoulder. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

Maybe it’s the slowness of her mind post-coming, but she feels like she’s missed something. “Why’re you apologizing?” Her face fits comfortably against him; she thinks she could fall asleep here.

“I wanted you to have another.” Jamie sighs heavily, and almost—what, tearfully? Oh, no. “I didn’t mean for it to be like that, our first time after—” He pulls out and away from her, and he does indeed appear to be sniffling, which isn’t as unsexy as it is heartbreaking.

She draws him into a hug, though it’s hard to be comforting and naked. “Shut up. It was great, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I never want to be like that with you,” he mutters, and presses a kiss to her wet hair.

Amy scoffs. “I liked it. It was sexy! I’ll be disappointed if you never do it again.” Leaning back, she holds his face between her hands. “No one can fuck gently in a shower. And I wouldn’t want you to, anyway, okay?”

“Okay,” he says, eyes on the floor between them.

She leans in, conspiratorial. “I’m also happy that you’ve got it in you to fuck like that.” The reality of a life having Jamie  _make love_  to her every night strikes her as frighteningly suburban, for lack of a better word.

He gives her a small smile, but sighs not long after, and goes to shut off the water. Trying to shake off the sadness, Amy clamors out and gets them towels. “I was—I think I was angry,” he admits. “Or something. I don’t know.”

Blushing, she tugs a towel around herself. “Angry at who?”

“Me,” he says simply, covering himself in kind. “The universe. Everyone. Mostly me.”

Her chest hurts, out of nowhere. “Jamie.” He gives her the saddest look, a look like a dog that’s been kicked and starved and bullied, and she’s guilty, and she’s sad too. But she’s better than sadness; this is something she’s learned. “Hey,” she says, taking his hand. “Let’s go put on the TV and get room service and make stupid jokes. And also, it’s can’t be later than eleven, so you’ve got plenty of opportunity to make me have another.” He laughs, half of his mouth twisting upwards brokenly, and doesn’t resist being dragged back into the bedroom.

They order a plate of fancy cheeses with odd names and a tiramisu from the hotel service. After a brief foray back to the pool to get the divorce papers—Jamie lifts her by the waist and declares his intention to dump her in water, but the threats are empty—they split one of his pajama sets back in the room, her wearing the shirt and him the pants. The only movie on is a disaster story about an avalanche that’s half way done when they tune in and has only one familiar-looking actor, but if anything this suits them best: discerning the plot thus far occupies their imaginations and conversational muscles, and Amy rattles off enough disdainful remarks about the quality of the writing to leave him in fits.

At fifteen to midnight, she hears the muffled buzzing of her phone, and scrambles to answer. Sophie.

“Hey Soph,” she chirps. She tugs down the shirt, as if her roommate could hear her scanty attire.

“Hey, I just stopped by the room and I didn’t see you, I was just wondering what you were up to?”

Amy glances back at the bed, where a half-naked Jamie is scraping up the last of the tiramisu. “Just. You know. Went for a walk.”

“Right. Well.” The embarrassment is heavy in Sophie’s voice. “I might not make it back tonight, so don’t wait up for me.”

It’s all Amy can do not to whoop, but she does bounce up and down a little, earning a curious look from Jamie. “Okay. That’s fine. Noted.”

“Okay. Have a good night, girl.”

“You too.” As soon as Amy ends the call, she blurts out, “Sophie and Craig are gonna  _do it_.”

“How do you know that?” Jamie asks as she joins him on the bed, snugging into his side.

“Because they spent the whole night together and now she’s not coming back to the room.”

He frowns. “You’re not coming back to the room either.”

“And I didn’t  _not_  get laid, did I?”

“I suppose that’s true.” Jamie rests his head against hers. He feels as comfortable next to her warm and dry as he does warm and wet. “You missed the end of the movie.”

The credits are rolling, and Amy grabs the remote to shut the television off. The room is quieter without the electric hum, but she likes it, and she’s close enough to dozing off that it’s time for them to tug back the covers and crawl underneath.

“You know, I owe you something,” Jamie says, once they’re good and settled, and the long day is catching up with Amy.

“Oh, shut up,” she murmurs. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“I do,” he insists. And suddenly the hands that had been toying with strands of her hair is toying with the buttons of her shirt, and then pulling down her panties.

“Asshole,” she laughs, and then sucks in a long breath as he slips two now-learned fingers inside of her. He makes quick work of the whole thing, kissing her through it and swallowing her sighs, and when she has the wits to think anything she can only remember over and over that they’re  _thirty_  and it’s been  _ten years_  and he’s somewhere gained the requisite knowledge to be really, really excellent at fingerfucking. A third finger gets her over the edge, and she’s barely come down from it when she’s reaching for his groin. He almost falls off the bed in an effort to simultaneously get away from her and suck the wetness from his fingers.

“What’s wrong with you?” she huffs, arms across her chest.

“Don’t worry about that.” He’s hovering at the end of the bed now, and she can see that he’s hard, which makes this all the more frustrating.

“I’m not worried about it, it’s just annoying when someone gets you off and doesn’t let you get them off.” She frowns at him with all the petulance she can manage. “I have such a good idea, too.”

Jamie narrows his eyes. “What idea?”

“A good one. Come over here and I’ll show you.”

“How about—just, you know. Regular.”

“No,” she scoffs. “I want to get you off. Just you.”

“Why?” he whines, and he’s completely departed the bed now, he’s sitting on the floor peeking at her over the coverlet.

“Because.” When he doesn’t move, she says rather flatly, hoping that the seriousness will rouse him, “It’s going to be a problem if you insist on not letting me do stuff to you in bed.”

Jamie peers at her for a moment, lip in his teeth, before shutting his eyes. “Where do you want me to be?”

“Actually, stay where you are and sit on the end.” Amy climbs out from under the covers and comes to kneel at the end of the bed, between his knees, which immediately sends the color to Jamie’s cheeks.

“I hope you’re not thinking—”

“Lie back.” She slips her fingers into the waistband of his pants.

“Amy.” He pries her hands away. “Not that.”

God, he’s so— “Why not?” Of all the people she could’ve fallen for, it had to be a prude.

“Because it’s—it’s degrading, and you don’t get anything from it—” If she rolls her eyes any harder they’re going to pop out of her head. “—and I don’t want that, I want it to be about  _you_  when we’re together—”

“That’s selfish,” she informs him.

Jamie frowns. “ _Selfish_? It’s not…”

Sighing, she folds her legs beneath her. “You probably want to think it’s the opposite, but like, I love sex, and I love being fucked, and I love fucking other people.” He’s blushing wholly now, right to the tips of his ears. “You’re only thinking about what you want the sex to be, so yeah, that’s selfish.”

He stares at his lap. “Sorry.”

“It’s—hey.” Amy sits up again, trying to restore their energy. “Do you get anything from eating a woman out? Like, do you enjoy it?”

“Of course. It’s… I, I do.”

“So what makes you think I’m not going to love sucking you off just as much?” She offers him this question with a raised eyebrow, and he responds by smiling faintly, and she thinks she’s won.

“Okay,” he whispers.

“Have you ever actually gotten one?” she asks, nudging his stomach as a cue to lie back. He shakes his head. “You’re going to love it. You’re going to want one every time.”

“Do you promise if I don’t like it we won’t have to do it that often?” Amy bites back a smile; he sounds like a scared kid about to go on his first rollercoaster or something. Except that blowjobs are exponentially better than rollercoasters.

“Only if you promise never to cry after sex again.” She peels his pants and boxers down in a single motion.

“Promise,” he squeaks, as Amy presses a kiss to the skin beneath his belly button.

When she takes him into her mouth, he makes a sound like he’s instead been shoved into a cold lake without warning. Her resulting stifled laughter must affect him, either physically or emotionally, because he squirms and she has to pin him down at the hips to keep going. For the first few minutes he’s tense and doesn’t seem to be loosening up at all, and she releases him with a little  _pop_. “Relax,” she insists, and winds their fingers together, which grounds him, judging from the way he clings to her hand. She pecks the tip before she taking him in again, and whether as a reprimand or an exclamation or whatever, he says, “Amelia.” He doesn’t even seem to be talking to her, not really; he never does when he calls her by her full name. It’s more like the way you speak about someone in a photograph, kind of longing and holy.

She ignores the flutter in her chest and gives it the works this time—the triple threat of lips, teeth and tongue—now that he’s settled enough to really enjoy everything. And enjoy it he does, judging from the constant sighs and mutterings issuing from above her head, and as he gets closer one of his hands finds her hair and he even thrusts up into her a little, but only a little, because it’s Jamie, after all.

It’s a touch of her teeth, she thinks, that finally gets him. He makes another one of those really dramatic, fabulous noises when he comes, and glancing up she can see the way his neck arches, and she could probably get herself through a ten year prison sentence on those two details alone. And to think, he assumed she wouldn’t enjoy this.

She releases him and comes to hover above his face, so he can see her swallow very obviously.

“Oh, Amy, Amy,” he pants, shaking his head. “You didn’t—need…”

“Shut up.” She kisses him. “You’d chew vagina-flavored gum if they made it. Actually, they probably do, I’ll get you some.” He laughs and pulls her into a hug.

“Did you like it, then?”

It’s really a pointless question, since she’s never given a bad blowjob in her life, and anyway, his terror at receiving oral likely had to do with an ingrown desire to have his cock sucked forever and ever.

“It was okay,” Jamie manages, and out of the corner of her eye she can see his face is red. Amy snorts and presses into him.

“Sure. Okay.”

They lie quietly for a while and she tells him, under her breath, “I missed you too.”

He passes out not long after—typical—but she takes her time dozing off, feeling relieved.

* * *

When she wakes up, he’s standing, fully dressed (though jacketless), shoving clothes into his suitcase.

“Are you ever going to wake up naked with me?” she asks, face half-buried in the pillow.

“Sorry.” Jamie crawls across the bed to press a kiss to her forehead before bounding into the bathroom. “Check out’s in half an hour,” he cries.

“Fuck. I’ve got to go back to my room.” She bolts up and starts tugging on her jeans. “I’ll talk to you in the lobby, okay?”

“Okay. Wait!” He emerges from the bathroom and swoops her into a kiss, then lowers her gently. “Now you can go.”

Amy guffaws and heads for the door. “You’re the most ridiculous excuse for a human man.”

“Love you too, Pond,” he says behind her.  

* * *

The next time they see each other is not in the lobby, but in the parking lot, and it’s a miracle she catches him at all. Tossing her bag into the back seat, she turns to Sophie. “Back in a sec.” Her roommate has a map of New England spread across the dashboard and isn’t paying her much attention to begin with.

“Hey,” Amy says, approaching his car—a blue BMW convertible that looks kind of vintage, exactly what she’d expect him to drive. He climbs out of the driver’s seat to greet her, grinning.

“Hi, Pond.” He looks to be leaning in but she puts a hand between their faces.

“Sophie can see us. I’d rather break it to her gently.”

Jamie pouts. “No kiss goodbye?”

“Last night was the exception, remember?”

“What, we’ve got to start from scratch?” he asks, leaning against the car, and she joins him.

“I guess that’s not totally realistic,” she admits. You can’t exactly start from scratch after ten years, and for all the pain it’s caused her, she wouldn’t want to, not with Jamie. “But slow. One step at a time.”

“So you’re going to refuse the offer to drive home with me?”

Even though this sounds infinitely more appealing than being probed by Sophie for five hours about “how it went,” she shakes her head. “Nope. You’re on your own.”

“Do I get to ask you out when we get back?” It strikes her as odd that after everything they’ve done and felt for each other, they’ve never technically gone out. Not even for a day.

She grins. “Who says I won’t ask you?”

“Well.” He starts to climb into the car. “Since we’re taking it slow, I suppose we’ll have to see who can wait the longest.” Amy eyes him, half-smiling in astonishment, because she’s not sure if this bet is unhealthy or playful. Ultimately the grin on his face tells her that a game is a game, and they’re both losers already, so it doesn’t really matter.

She pecks him on the cheek before starting back toward Sophie. “You’re on.”   


	19. Paper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes, this chapter has been a long time in the making, but after c17 and c18 I decided to go a different route with the ending and it took me a while to process it. Everyone’s patience is appreciated. 
> 
> That said, this chapter alternates between a Christmas party seven months after the wedding, and their first date directly following it. I think it’s pretty easy to follow, and there’s a reason I wanted to switch back and forth, which you may pick up on.

Seven months later, they host their first Christmas as a couple.

Though it’s not actually Christmas—Christmas is three days out, but they’re all celebrating now, before Chris and David and Rose go back to Portland to spend the holidays with Jamie’s extended family, and Idris and Mels drive home, having both volunteered for Christmas Day shifts in the Boston General Emergency room.

And they’re not actually hosting as a couple, either. Jamie gets designated host because it’s his family in town and by virtue of having the nicest apartment. And then the day before the party he asks Amy if he ought to get something for Christmas dinner, and it becomes her thing as much as his, out of necessity.

“I didn’t even know they made apartments this big,” Sophie exclaims, as Amy takes her coat. Craig doesn’t even comment; he’s stuck gaping. They’ve been long-distance for a few months now, meeting for dates in Stamford, halfway between their places in New York and New Haven.

Sophie and Craig are the last to arrive and Jamie’s living room bustles with whooping brothers and old friends, his Christmas tree lending the festivities an ostentatious background. What decorations were lost in the divorce have been replaced by an assortment of tacky New York landmark ornaments, which they’d hunted across a dozen tourist locations on their six-month anniversary, a kind of productive celebration.

Amy stands in the doorway to the kitchen watching their—his—guests be full of cheer, while Jamie attends to the busy assortment of stewing pots and pans that is their half-complete dinner. He turns managing everything into an acrobatic performance, and the food smells heavenly. Though there’s never more than a jar of peanut butter in his apartment, Jamie when he does cook is a savant. Without recipes, he makes better food than any restaurant she’s been to, or at least it feels better than any restaurant she’s been to, because it’s hot and fresh and made just for her and sometimes she doesn’t even need to get out of her pajamas.

“Taste this,” he says, beckoning her, and she’s launched from her daydream.   

Careful to keep her baggy, garish holiday sweater from the heat, Amy peeks into the pot. “Gravy?”

“Yes. Have some.” He’s grinning, and she tries it.

_Fuck_. “Oh my god.” It’s thick and creamy and flavorful, like melt-in-your-mouth flavorful. Like—Christmas.

Jamie not only laughs but hops a little in place. “It’s good, right?”

“Mmm, when’s it going to be done?” She can’t help sucking on the spoon, just in case she’s missed any.

“Not for a bit. But I’m done for now.” He cranes his neck to get a look at the living room. “Do you think it’s going well?”

Amy eyes him. A nervous Jamie, been a while since she dealt with this. “Are you seriously worried? About the party?”

“No. I guess not.” Shoulders sinking, he mutters, “I haven’t seen them since last Christmas.” 

Ah. She glances at Chris, who’s looking right back at them, to her surprise. He gives a little wave that Amy returns, maybe blushing. She’s suddenly aware of Jamie’s hand on her arm.

“I told them about us over email. I just—” And he’s playing with her shirt, too. “I want it to go well.”

She slips away from his touch to open a new Chardonnay. “They’re on their third bottle of wine. I think it’s going great.”

* * *

“A week,” says Jamie gleefully, when she calls him for the first time after the wedding.

“Five days,” Amy corrects, though it’s not to her benefit. She drums her fingers against the kitchen counter, where she’s spent a lot of time this week, pacing and swallowing her impatience.

“Is that a lot or a little?”

“I’m not sure. It felt like forever.” On a level Amy knows that depriving herself was silly, but the more distance Jamie can put between his marriage and her, the better their burgeoning relationship’s chances will be. And she wants them to have the best chances, ever.

“So you missed me.” She snorts but doesn’t disagree. “Does this mean you like me, Pond?”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Where else is it going to go? You just said it in my ear.”

Taking a moment to glare at her fridge as a Jamie proxy, Amy has a realization and shoots back, “I said it into the  _phone_.”

He makes an amused noise that tells her she’s won. “So is it a date?”

“I thought we weren’t going to use that word,” she sighs.

“But whoever called was going to ask the other person out.” One day, her eyes are going to roll back into her head and she’ll be blind forever.

“Yeah, out.”

“On a date!”

“No, just out.”

“Pond, I believe the phrase ‘ask out’ is a compendium of the phrase ‘ask out on a date’.”

The locks on the front door click one after the other, and she can hear Sophie shuffling outside. “Call it what you want, but tomorrow night, be here at 6:30.” Wasn’t he all giggles about dates the last time they talked?

“What if I’ve got plans?”

Her roommate enters with two armfuls of groceries and Amy unburdens her, balancing the phone. “Do you have plans?”

“No,” he admits. “But I could’ve. I could’ve had a work emergency.”

“Right, I forgot that physics students sometimes forget a formula on Saturday night.”

Jamie chuckles and she wonders when he mastered an appreciation for her jabs, in place of personal offense. Actually, come to think of it, he may have never been all that offended—she might be so used to the misinterpretation of her humor that she’s started assuming it. “That’s pretty good,” he tells her.

Sophie seems to have picked up on their conversation and is grinning while she puts away the milk, which Amy finds strangely embarrassing. “Just be here, okay? I’ll text you the address of the new place.”

“Understood.”

“Okay. I’ll see you.”

“Amy?”

She thinks it’s the use of her first name that stalls her reply. “Yeah?”

There’s a pause on his end, too. She can feel Sophie’s eyes on her back. “Love you,” Jamie says, with difficulty.

Amy clears her throat and turns away, trying to shield her face behind a box of Cheerios. “Same.”

Sophie doesn’t seem to react or notice anything—and why would she—but he only mutters, “G’bye,” before hanging up. Amy shoves the Cheerios into a cupboard.  

“So,” says Sophie loudly, taking a seat at the breakfast counter. She doesn’t say anything else, but her eyebrows are expectant. All she managed to get out of Amy on the car ride home was that she and Jamie are giving it a go, and that Amy had spent the night in his hotel room. Sophie offered plentiful sex details about her own adventures in exchange for some of her friend’s, but Amy shut that exchange down speedily. There’s something about the way people act when they know you’re in love: they’re always grinning and they assume you know why. Sophie’s fascination with her and Jamie—not even a fascination, more like a healthy friend interest, she  _knows_  that—strikes her as very middle school, when a crush was the biggest scandal imaginable.

She’s embarrassed. And it’s not Jamie, it’s just the nature of the thing, but it’s also Jamie. She doesn’t really get it, what came over her at the pool the night they first met, why she dwelled on him, why the reality ended up being even bigger. It’s not physical attraction, not entirely, there’s got to be something else, some explanation for the magnetism. She’s made her peace with wanting him, but the why? It escapes her. And she’s embarrassed.

And Jamie—oh, stupid, honey-tongued Jamie, going around ending conversations with ‘love you.’ She’d told him slowly, and multiple times, and here he’s acting like they’re three months into this and she’s just begun keeping a toothbrush at his place. Not that she’d managed to honor their agreement and tell him the problem.  _Love you_.  _Same._  Not even a week in and she’s already breaking promises.

“So,” Amy repeats, giving her roommate a smile. “I have to plan the best date ever.”

* * *

At her encouragement, Jamie goes to mingle with the party guests, while Amy opens wine number four. Sophie joins her in the kitchen, carrying the empty bottles.

And Amy finds herself feeling relieved, because she finally gets to say, in a gossip whisper, what she’s been thinking for over an hour: “David and Rose are  _so handsy_.”

Soph looks confused, but it’s true—David and his girlfriend have had their hands all over each other tonight, and there’s not enough people in the group to dispel the awkwardness they’re creating.

“They’re a little flirty,” says Sophie, shrugging.

“A  _little?_ ” They giggle at everything, it’s always some private joke. “They’re not quitting, it’s kind of nauseating.” Amy uncorks the wine and tops off Sophie’s glass.

“Well, just because you and Jamie never touch each other in public—” There’s probably more to this rant, but the look on Amy’s face must stop her short. “What, are you going to deny it?”

“We touch each other plenty,” Amy chokes out. She can barely breath for her astonishment.

Sophie raises an eyebrow. “I’ve never seen you kiss. Seven months, right?”

“You  _have_.”

“On the mouth? No!”

Amy peels the aluminum at the neck of the wine bottle, sensing the frown on her face but powerless to rub it away. She’s never wanted to be like that with him, in front of people, because—he’s Jamie, you know. He gets so intense sometimes when they’re together, like she’s the only thing in the world to see, and it’s hard enough to reciprocate in privacy.

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it,” Sophie adds, softer. “You’re really good flirts and as long as you like him… It’s just, we’ve all got different styles in a relationship, and your style is—I don’t know, not acting like a couple.”  But she and Jamie have been acting like a couple for—it’s their default, it’s why they slept together—coupledom is their default. Does she  _like_  him? Sophie’s crazy.

“You’re crazy.” She fills her own glass, and fully.

Sophie’s tone changes, lowering emphatically. “Do you think Craig and I are too handsy?”

Amy grits her teeth. “Not as bad as that.” The look her roommate gives her is similarly emphatic, and she sighs. “Okay, fine, whatever. PDA makes me uncomfortable.”

“Thanks for admitting it.” God. Embarrassing. Sophie’s smirking but the expression melts away. “Speaking of me and Craig.”

“Yeah, how is that?”

“Well, we were talking.” Oh, this sounds bad. “And I think we’re going to move in together. Like in a place in Stamford.”

Stamford? Fucking—Stamford? Amy’s mouth hangs open. “You’re moving to Connecticut.”

“Which means, I know—” The guilt in Sophie’s face is doing nothing to comfort her or tell her how to feel. “We haven’t really been settled in the apartment for that long, but I’ll totally help find another roommate. Or, if you really want to stay in Manhattan,” She lowers her voice. “This apartment isn’t too bad. And you’re here half the time anyway.”

What a threateningly massive idea delivered in such a casual, compact way.

It’s true that she stays at Jamie’s at least one night a week, usually two or three, but that’s because it’s easier to be by themselves, and he makes a killer omelet if she remembers to bring the eggs. It’s also true that she keeps some clothes in a drawer, and a few toiletries in the bathroom, but that’s just convenient and comfortable after a while, it only makes sense. And it’s true that it’s been seven months, and happy ones at that, but they’re closer than they’ve ever let themselves be and it’s just—natural. It’s the way the dice have fallen.  

Moving in together could have a similar necessity and ease attached to it, judging by the situation, but something about how slickly all these gears fall into place frightens her. Like she’s slipping into a serious relationship rather than stepping into one, each footfall carefully considered. A part of her rages to resist the coy cleanliness of it, because coy cleanliness screams  _trap_.

“That’s not the problem,” she lies firmly, and ignores Sophie’s smug smile. “If you’re in the suburbs I’m going to have to find a new friend.”

* * *

Jamie shows up for their—and she refers to it as such grudgingly—first date in a bowtie. An actual bowtie.

“What is around your neck?” she demands, eyeing him in the doorway.

He contorts goofily to look down at it, though there’s no seeing around that chin. “It’s a tie! You didn’t say if it was going to be fancy.”

“It’s not.” She shuts the door behind him. The nervous flutter in her stomach distracts her from a cheerful front—she’s been thinking about that phone call far too much—and she’s a little lost, a little uncomfortable, not helping herself make this the best date ever as penance for the inadequacy of  _same_.

Not that Jamie seems affected by her earlier faux pas. He grins broadly. “Then I’ll just look cool!”

“Will you, though?”

It hits her that she’s about to go out with a guy in a bowtie, and she feels sort of—pathetic. And then she feels bad for feeling pathetic, because she does love Jamie, and there’s not supposed to be all this difficulty after the fact.

Impervious to her disdain, he bounds into the apartment with the usual confidence and a dash of overenthusiasm. “So what  _is_  it? What’s the date?”

“Right.” Following him, she pulls the envelope on the kitchen counter to her chest, and turns to assess Jamie. “Can’t believe I’m going to be seen with you in that thing.”

“Yes, I’m sure everyone will be very impressed.” He makes a grab for the envelope but she pulls it away with a smirk. “Amy,” he whines.

“Alright, fine.” She thrusts it in his direction and he nearly tears the thing open, making her wince. She put a full afternoon into this, and a hot one for May.

“Shakespeare in the Park,” he cries, and a split second later she’s engulfed in a hug. “And it’s only just opened, and  _Cymbeline_ , oh it’s great, you’re going to  _love_  it.”

“Honestly, I hadn’t even heard of it until I got in line for the tickets.” When they break apart he’s got the biggest smile on his face, and the tension balled in her belly unwinds.

“It’s not that popular, I guess, but you’ll like it, I promise.” He clings to her hands with that doubt-defying smile and it’s nice to remember that Jamie’s not the problem, just everything that comes with him, and a little bit the fact that he  _is_  so great. If only she could find a foothold in some flaw of his that’d slow her powerless descent into the future. But she likes the moles and the faint scar protruding past his hairline, and the bad bits on the inside are all to do with loving her too much. How’s she to compete with that?

Problem’s a heavy word, anyway. It’s all transitional phobia that’ll fade after a while. Comfort comes with time. It’s only their first date.

* * *

The group exchanges gifts after dinner, everyone except Jamie feeling the wine, and Jamie feeling the Christmas spirit similarly. He glows, like in the same way they say pregnant ladies glow, a bright and frantic host. When he gives her the present, his cheeks are somehow red. They’re sitting cross-legged on the carpet by the tree, their guests looking down at them, quieter than the other gift exchanges tonight.

“Sorry it’s a bit repetitive,” Jamie says, as her hands close around the blue envelope.

Roundtrip to Paris leaving on December 29th, returning January 5th. Amy gasps.

“What is it?” Idris demands. Everyone’s twisting out of their seats to see.

“A trip to Paris.” Their friend chorus in shrieks and squeaks and guffaws. She stares at Jamie, who’s still  _glowing_. Her chest swells with regard, deep affection welling up from the very core of her, spilling out uninvited, moving her almost to tears. She and Jamie are going to Paris, finally.  She’s never kissed him in front of their friends.

So she does now, pulling them together by the front of his sweater. A long kiss, maybe steamier than necessary,  _definitely,_ steamier than necessary. She’s not shy with her tongue and she thinks about how she doesn’t care what Sophie says, about how she’s not debating whether this kiss is pretend or real relinquished secrecy, how she doesn’t feel terrified at the prospect of cohabitation, of their blossoming forever. It doesn’t take long for the amused noises around them to dissipate, replaced with silent awe. When they break apart, David whistles. Jamie’s staring at her, now, looking dopey and frazzled. His mouth his red from her lipstick.

Amy clears her throat. “Thanks, babe.”  

* * *

They leave the play and walk up Central Park West, holding hands after some nervous reluctance, and she makes a confession: “I didn’t understand a word of it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Jamie’s grin illuminated by the streetlamp’s glow and the headlights of taxis ripping by. “He got a little convoluted with the language in the later plays. Mark Twain wrote differently, too. It’s a mark of genius, I think.”

“Hmph.” The day has cooled into a nippy evening, and she finds herself wishing she’d brought a coat. “Well, I got that there were some lost brothers. And an evil queen. Imogen was cool. Cymbeline—like, he didn’t do much, don’t really understand why it’s called  _Cymbeline_.” Jamie laughs, squeezing her hand. If he’s got to be a literary snob, at least he’s one with a sense of humor. “How do you even know all that stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“The  _language_  in the  _later_   _plays_ ,” she mocks, and Jamie sticks his tongue out at her. “You’re a physicist—where do you find the time to memorize random facts about Shakespeare and Mark Twain? I can’t even remember where I left my keys.”

There’s an older couple shuffling down the street with their grocery cart, and the lady smiles when she sees their hands. She’s always hated that—people are so nosy about couples. Anyone could look at her and guess how the rest of her night will go, and some of them will think she’s waiting for a proposal, or a baby, and if they’re wrong she can’t correct them and if they’re right they’re—right. Maybe that’s why even Sophie’s inquiries needle at her: her love for Jamie was private, and now the world can see her weakness.

“Sometimes I forget where my keys are too,” he admits. “I don’t know. Reading mostly. I am a student of the world!” His voice climbs into this declaration, and he sweeps an arm across their path, presenting the sidewalk like a work of art, which does get a laugh out of her. Their shoulders brush. “Did you at least enjoy the play, Pond?”

It may have been exhausting, but it wasn’t unpleasant. “Yeah, I did.” They pass the old woman and her spouse, to Amy’s relief. “You know, one of my favorite bars ever is like two blocks from here, and would you believe I haven’t been there since I quit the museum?” In tacit agreement, they’d avoided discussing the nearness of her former workplace, even walking by it earlier that evening. Now she smirks at him, brows raised in a question.

“A bar?” he asks weakly.

“Oh, come on! What sort of sorry student of the world are you, turning your nose up at a bar?”

“Not  _turning up my nose_ —”

“I go to a play, you come to a bar. That’s pretty fair.” They’ve paused their stroll, caught up in the argument, and she doesn’t hesitate to wheedle, leaning toward him suggestively. “You know, I waited all day to get those tickets for us.” Jamie whines and stomps a bit in place, then gives her a grudging nod, and Amy punches the air. “Yes, big yes!”

“As long as I can get a milkshake,” he adds, as she starts dragging them away from the park.

“Okay.” A milkshake at a bar. “No, wait.” She pauses, seizing his arm. “Why don’t you try a piña colada or something? Oh, no— _you_ should have a Sex on the Beach.”

He looks positively horrified. “A  _what_?” Some things never change.

“It’s a drink, stupid.” The relieved expression is priceless. “It’s really fruity. With the little umbrella and everything. And I’ll even order it for you if you order my wine, so you won’t look weird.” As if the bowtie weren’t bad enough.

They continue up the street, her leading the way. “Pond,” he declares. “I think we both know that I haven’t got any problem with looking weird.”

“Yeah,” she calls over her shoulder. “But I do.”

* * *

 

Entertaining’s downfall is the clean up, and it takes her and Jamie over an hour to tidy after the guests leave, considering the only thing his apartment lacks is a dishwasher. David and Rose are long retired to the guest room and Chris is in the shower, so the task is theirs alone. But they get a little system together with him washing and her drying, and start planning their visit to Paris as much as they’re willing to plan anything, and she mentions the list.

“What list?” he asks, rinsing the last of the plates.

“It’s not like an actual piece of paper. Just, you know, I’ve wanted to go to Paris for a long time and I have a bunch of—just places, really. Places to go.” She runs a towel over the plate and stacks it with the others, and Jamie shoos her to the couch while he (in a psychic maneuver) pours her a glass of wine.

“Then we’ll write them all down.” He grabs a pad and paper from the kitchen counter and joins her on the couch, delivering the wine with a little bow.

“Thanks.” She gives him a smile. There are days when he couldn’t be more perfect if she were paying him, and she wonders if he’d say the same about her. “And we don’t have to write it all down, it’s not that important.”

Jamie scoffs, flopping down beside her. “Of course it’s important! We’ve got five days to make Paris live up to your expectations and we’re not going to—going to—”

“Half-ass it?” she offers, sipping.

“Right. Yes. That. Okay.” He settles the pad of paper on his knee and scrawls  _PARIS_ , then looks up at her. “One thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“I feel…” Oh no. Jamie feeling something. This is the sort of thing that makes her want to close herself like a fist, since she’s all about hitting anyway. “Well, you’ve got to know Chris and David so well, and I set up the trip thinking it’d be fun, but I want you to know that for next Christmas—” Next Christmas. “Or, or Thanksgiving, whenever—if you want to go to Topeka, just say the word.”

_Use your words_. But nothing’s coming out. God, Aunt Sharon with Jamie, she’d eat him alive—and they’d have to go to the home to see her mother, inevitably—and furthermore,  _next_  Christmas! “That’s kind of far away, yeah?” she says, as levelly as she can manage.

“Well, Topeka is half the distance of Paris—”

“Next Christmas. It’s over a year from now.” Amy gulps some wine, though she’s nauseous.

“Oh. Yeah. It is.” He nods slightly but doesn’t seem to be absorbing the issue.

“I don’t think we should plan that far ahead,” she says, flatly this time, and Jamie flushes.

“Of course. I’m sorry.” He’s staring at his lap now, and she feels a twinge of guilt. “You’re right, there’s no way to know what we’re going to want to do next Christmas.” Her stomach knots; Amy shuts her eyes and falls back into the couch cushions; and all the while Jamie continues to plan for Christmas over a year from now, along with selecting the band for their early spring wedding and picking the names of their children and filling out, for said children, college applications to only top tier institutions. For someone so pridefully spontaneous, Jamie gets ahead of himself very easily. She nudges him with her foot, maybe a little too hard, as he’s properly startled.

“Let’s work on the list.”

“Absolutely,” he gushes, drawn to the shinier, happier topic without fuss. “So, Paris!”

* * *

 

In an ironic twist, it takes Jamie forever to find his keys when they arrive at his place from the bar. It’s implicit that she’s going to come in rather than take the cab on home, which is nice, at least they don’t have to do that dance—though she reels at the absence of ritual barriers, if only because that’s how she’s always dragged herself out of bad dates in the past. So it may be true—no, it  _is_  true—that she and Jamie’s date went fantastically, but she’s used to having a hand on the emergency break, and now when she grabs for it there’s nothing but air.

“God,” she says, once they’re inside. “This is your bachelor pad? It looks like you could raise a herd of five in here.”

“Doesn’t it?” he replies, delighted, and Amy’s too shocked to process. “Not  _five_ ,” Jamie adds quickly. At least he’s sensed her distress, even if he can’t remedy it.

She nods and he, in a flustered rush, throws open the fridge. “Can I get you anything?”

“I’m fine.”

He shuts the fridge. “Okay. You’re fine. I’m fine too.”

They stand for a second, looking at each other over the kitchen island.

“It’s late,” she offers. He manages a nod, wringing his hands. “We could go to bed.” He nods again. “Okay,” Amy says with a resolved vigor. “I’m just going to make this easy and go get naked and wait for you.” He gapes at her. “Bedroom’s this way, right?” She starts for the stairs, but the movement forces Jamie to recover himself, and he darts to grab her by the waist, pulling them together.

“No, that’s—” Their mouths have wandered very close, which distracts her from thinking anything coherent, and makes him struggle to finish his sentences. “That’s not—how I would like…” It’s not how she would’ve liked, either, but they kiss and it seems like things are going in a different direction.

“We’re going to get that idiotic neckpiece off of you,” she mutters, as he fumbles at the zipper of her dress.

* * *

 

“Time to sleep,” she tells him, after a long session of speculative tourism. Jamie’s head dropped to her shoulder a while ago, signaling his weariness, but he continues talking like the long day hasn’t touched him.

“But the list!” The list is already extensive, and there’s no way they’ll do it all in five days, so there’s no use adding more. The daydream, however, proved enjoyable.

“We have a seven hour plane ride to work on the list, sleepy boy.” She sets her empty wine glass on the table and pries the pen and paper from his hands.

“I’m not a sleepy boy,” Jamie mumbles, but doesn’t fight her. Amy, pushing him gently from her shoulder, stands.

“I’m going to go set all the Paris stuff on your desk, and you start getting ready for bed, okay?”

“Okay.” She drags him from the sofa and they trudge up the stairs together, Amy remarking that the view of his ass is especially good this way and him making his usual violated noise of protest, though he clearly loves the attention. At the landing he disappears into the master bedroom and she goes down the hall to the study.

His home office is as much a disaster as his work office, and she’s avoided it best she can for seventh months—it feels as though the room can’t occupy more than one person without caving in. The bookshelves are not only packed to sagging, but he’s run out of wall space for more, so there are waist-high stacks of volumes scattered variously. His desk is also mounted with books, and papers and file folders too, and a couple of empty teacups, in addition to the typical host of nerdy bric-a-brac. Amy navigates the clutter and tries to shuffle things around to make a space for the Paris stuff—if it gets eaten by the office they’re screwed, though less so if it were eaten by the rest of the apartment, at least the office is small—and ends up knocking pile of half-opened mail to the ground, which sends her swearing.

Bending to gather the papers, a name pops out at her from a printed envelope: Martha Jones, M.D. Jamie’s got a letter from Martha—from Martha’s  _work_? She plops to the floor, staring at the envelope, the rest of his mail spread across her lap. Opening his mail is Crazy Girlfriend Behavior 101, but there’s a chance—there’s the slightest, tiniest chance—that Jamie’s been in therapy and not  _telling_  her, which leaves her with a sort of nasty feeling, since he knows all about her psychiatric woes. And the likelihood is that it’s just some invitation to a Columbia reunion, anyway, so there’d be no harm in finding out.

Carefully, so as not to leave any clues, she pulls the letter from the envelope, and unfolds it.

It  _is_  a bill, she  _knew_  it—and then she sees the dates, which are oddly familiar. And then she sees the handwritten addition on the bottom, which is oddly unfamiliar, as though these weren’t his sessions at all, as though Martha were—

Reporting. On someone else.

It’s not that her heart races and her breathing stops, or if they do, she doesn’t feel it. Her body, as far as she can tell, has come to a standstill. A pause splays across her skin. Perhaps having the rug torn out from beneath her has cracked her back; perhaps her nervous system has been irreparably damaged; perhaps in a few days they’ll find her body buried under mail and books.

A year of therapy. A year of self-improvement, and yet it wasn’t, not  _self_ , it was—underwritten. By Jamie. No wonder he’s so set on next Christmas, he’s cashing in on his investment.

She’s started crying at some point, and now it’s enough to make her wipe her eyes on her sleeve. There’s really nothing wrong here—it’s not as if she didn’t need the help, it’s not as if she would’ve gone to Martha any other way—but she’s played at independence for so long now, the shattered illusion of agency leaves her clutching the bill, threatening to rip it in two. They—him, Martha, fucking  _Martha_  and the things Amy had told her in confidence—and Jamie, the unromantic love of her life, a liar after everything—they’d given her hope and they’d taken it away. And maybe she doesn’t deserve adulthood, maybe that’s true, but at the moment she can’t summon any rationality. Probably proves their point. She’s crazy. Apples don’t fall far from trees, and Amy is rotten on impact.

* * *

The morning after the date, she wakes up in his bed, and for the first time in their three nights together Jamie is beside her, awake and staring at the ceiling.

“Look who it is,” she mumbles, and he rolls over to grin at her.

“Good morning.”

“You realize you’ve never woken up naked with me before.” And it’s a shame; he looks even better in bed by daylight.

“Well.” His grin falters. “I actually got up at six and went for a run and took a shower and then I got back in bed.” Amy bursts out laughing. “The good news is that I smell better than you. And I got you coffee and bagels.”

She kisses him, and he does smell very good, and there’s no squashing her happy sigh. “I love you.”

Jamie pulls her to him with enough bravado to make her squeak, and with the two of them laughing, he shouts, “Same!”

Minutes later she’s perched on a stool at the kitchen island, enjoying the coffee and the button-up she’s stolen from his closet. He comes in, now fully-dressed, and stops at the sight of her. “Is that my shirt?”

“Yep.”

“Who said you could wear my shirt?” Amy gives him a slow, withering look and takes a sip of coffee. “Oh, fine. But don’t get anything on it.” He takes a seat across from her and starts fishing in the bag of bagels. “I have a question, Pond.”

“Do you?” she asks, feeling herself smile a little. There’s something about this morning that’s better than last night. Calmer, simpler. The date is a complicated beast, but the morning after is just right.

“Yes.” He picks at a plain bagel, brow furrowed. “Are you my girlfriend?”

Her mouth hangs open and then snaps shut. The sharpness of the inquiry surprises her—because they’ve only been out once as a couple, it’s true, but they’re far from new at this.

“I only ask,” he adds. “Because I’ve never really had a girlfriend, and I was just—”

Amy snorts. “You were  _married_.”

He coughs. “She was never really… I don’t know, River’s never really anyone’s girlfriend. I don’t even think we were exclusive until we got engaged, we only dated.”  

“So you think I could be a girlfriend?” Amy asks, deadpan.

“Not exactly. I think you could be  _my_  girlfriend.” She laughs once, noiselessly. “I have to say that I’m not really interested in you being anyone else’s girlfriend.”

“How selfish,” she jokes, her elbows on the counter and a smirk on her lips. “You know, if you want me to be a girlfriend you’ve got to agree to be a boyfriend.”

He stares at her, apparently having not realized this. “I’ve never done that before either. What does it entail?”

Amy shrugs. “I know even less about being a boyfriend than I do about being a girlfriend.”

“Okay,” he says, and throws a bit of bagel at her. “Adventure’s on, Pond.”


	20. Paris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final regular chapter of this fic. It has been over two months in the making, so I hope you find it appropriate and cathartic and everything it needs to be. Thanks to everyone who read and supported it. I will be putting out an epilogue in the next couple of weeks, but with this, the main story is over. I am potentially going to begin another multichapter fic, but I’ve yet to decide. So that’s what’s in the distant future. The near future is c20. Here you go.
> 
> Also, like every fifth chapter, this is from Jamie's POV.

Jamie collapses on to his bed the moment he reaches it, too exhausted for pajamas. He can wait for Amy to get back, she’ll make him do it, and in the mean time he shuts his eyes, just for a second. Between the early morning airport run for his brothers and the late morning grocery run for the meal and the afternoon post office run for the presents he’d forgotten to send, he’s done a lot of running today—and then the cooking, and the cleaning. It is so very hard to be human, some days.

“You know,” says Amy’s voice at the door, and he throws what energy he has left into sitting up. He smiles, sees her, stops smiling. “When my mom first got sick, my dad and my aunt had to trick her into going to the doctor.”

She’s standing there with red-rimmed eyes and a folded paper in her hands, not one he recognizes immediately. She looks devastated, and out of place—where has the devastation come from? It doesn’t match the snug familiarity of the room in which they’ve passed so many nights, or the holiday cheer still coursing through him. He doesn’t like it, the appearance of a devastated Amy at his bedroom door, not a bit.

“What’s the matter?” He pats the bed beside him but she doesn’t move.

“She was that crazy. She wouldn’t listen to them.” She talks over his shoulder, though he tries willing her to meet his eye. At first he’d been too distracted by tearful dissonance to hear her story, but it sinks in now, and the connection, if loose, is there. Amy had gone to the doctor of her own accord, he knows this, but that doesn’t erase his stirring guilt.

“Tell me,” he says, extending a hand. She looks at it but doesn’t take it. His heart thuds against his ribcage, and he swings into confusion. Something’s wrong.

Slowly, as if in pain, she raises the paper.  “Do you know what this is?”

Jamie starts to sweat at the accusation in her tone. “A piece of paper?” All she’d done was go down to the office, and he’s hidden everything, he’s sure of it. He doesn’t remember exactly, of course, but how could he ever do so stupid as to not hide it? No, there’s nothing there to make her upset—unless she had, somehow—but that doesn’t make any sense. He hid it. He’s sure. But the paper looks brutally familiar, now. How could he have forgotten about her mother?

“Hm.” She unfolds it with cruel precision. “It’s your bill for my sessions with Martha.” Oh. No, no. “Complete with progress report.” This is wrong.

“Amy,” he begins, though he has no clue what words will form the strongest plea. He was going to plan it, telling her. He was going to sit down with Martha and figure out the best approach. He was going to have time.

“I guess I should thank you, really.” She speaks plainly, but with a voice roughened by tears, which makes him hurt. All over, in a vague, earth-ending ache.

“I meant to tell you.” That’s not sufficient excuse, but it’s all he has right now. That and apology. “I am—very, very sorry, Amy.”

She looks down at the letter and bites her lip, hair slouching down, obscuring her face. “Did you mean to tell River you never fucked other women?” Oh. Amy laughs a dry, bitter, _mean_ laugh, and Jamie shrinks away from the noise. “Right, I forgot. You did eventually.”

River is gone, out of their lives. She’s not supposed to, she’s not _allowed_ to, ruin things with Amy anymore. It seems even when he tries he can’t escape it, the indelible past, like he’s stuck fleeing from its explosion and the heat never leaves his back. The bedroom is large but it feels the size of a cupboard, just then. “I’m sorry,” he says again, in a small voice.

“I don’t know how you could get out of this one that easily.” She stares at him so severely he averts his gaze. He doesn’t even know what she means, if she’s talking about the apology—or, or the sex. This loss of direction, the inadequacy of his options, leaves his eyes wet. What is he to do? Or say? “You know, I really thought I was done with men who think they know what’s best for me.”

“I don’t think that!” He’d helped her, he hadn’t forced it or anything, and it was bad that he lied, but had been his only choice, to give her a choice.

“Really?” she demands, and the venom in her words frightens him. “So if you didn’t trick me to help me then you did it to hurt me?”

“Of course not, Amy, you _needed_ the therapy—”

“And I didn’t know what I needed.”

 _You didn’t!_ he wants to yell, and that night when she and Rory fought rushes back to him in agonizing detail. He’d felt like he was pounding on some invisible wall between them, trying to make her listen. “You were convinced it wasn’t an option—”

“So you think I’m crazy.”

“I was worried about you.” No, not worried. “I was scared, Amy,” he says, the volume of his words dwindling. “I was so, so frightened—”

“ _Once_!” she screams, and he’s floored. “You asked me _once_!” Her face is red, she’s crying again. He might be crying too, he’s too floored to tell, he can feel himself sinking into the bed. “We had _one_ fucking conversation about therapy. And you think it gave you the right to lie to me? About _this_? When you didn’t even _try_ to talk to me about it. When I was already so fucking—” She loses the thought to her anger, and shakes to catch her breath.  

“Amy.” He gets to his feet slowly. “I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry.” Inhaling, always stupid hopeful, he takes a step toward her, but she backs away with her shiny-eyes and her red cheeks and his stomach convulses. Oh, no, no.

When she looks at him her expression is so loathsome he thinks he feels it stabbing right through his chest. “How am I supposed to be with somebody who’d rather lie to my face than tell me he’s scared for me?”

And he realizes: he’s going to do it. He’s going to lose her, like a nightmare. Panic turns to fear. “It was a long time ago, Amy, I was so _stupid_ —”

“You were a cowardly bastard.” The plainness of this statement cuts him. It’s not an insult but a fact. He’s been called a lot of things, but never coward. “And yet you’re defending yourself.” What’s he supposed to do? Say nothing?

“If I could go back—” The list of things to do differently stretches further than his mind’s current capacity. “There’s so much to dwell on, Amy, you can’t let this—”

“Don’t tell me what I can’t let get to me.” Amy has stopped crying; now the only thing he can see in her face is fury. “Do you even know how important it was that I went to her? What it means to me?”

“I _know_ it’s important—”

“It saved me.” She shakes her head, looking at something over his shoulder.  “I saved me. And it was you the whole time.”

Does she think—he didn’t _save_ her, he’s never thought of it that way—and what difference would it make if he had? Her successes in therapy are _hers_ , and he wouldn’t have it any other way, but Amy thinks—she thinks he’s co-opted her wellbeing? “You know that’s not true,” is the best he can do.

“I thought I knew a lot of shit before tonight.” She turns toward the door. “I thought you were my—I thought you were just about everything except my sponsor.”

“I’ll be whatever you want, just please, don’t—” He reaches for her arm but she shies away again, this time violently.

“Stop trying to fucking touch me, okay?” It sends a shock of horror through him.

“Okay, Amy, but _please_.” Not again. No, no.

 _No_ and _please_ remain his default response as their argument continues to hydroplane fitfully; they rotate between rage and devastation, aggressor and aggressed, and he says some things in self-defense so blatantly avoidant and untrue he will remember the rest of his life, even if she forgets. She is no kinder; she calls him a freak; he will try his hardest to forget _that_. It is their longest, fiercest, deepest fight to date, and it is not _about_ anything. Somewhere underneath it is a lie but it’s not about the lie, it’s just about them. His throat has begun to hurt by the time she says what she has perhaps been waiting all night to say.

“I guess you think I should stay with you because I owe you my sanity.” She’s been moving threateningly toward the hall as they’ve volleyed, and now she’s nearly out of the bedroom. 

It is a sort of shocking thought, for all the shocking thoughts articulated this evening. “You know that’s—I don’t think that, Amy, I love you.” Even as the possibility grows clearer he tells himself over and over that she can’t leave, not after everything, he thought she’d promised—they’re supposed to go to Paris. She can’t. Not after everything. It’s only been a few months.

“You and Rory would’ve been really good friends,” she says, nearly monotonous, and storms into the hall. _Rory_ , she thinks he’s like Rory. He chases after her, down the stairs. The door to the guest room had been open a crack and he hears it click closed as he runs by. They shouldn’t have shouted so much.

“Amy, Amy, please come back. I’m so _sorry_ , Amy.”

“I am sick—” She whirls around as they reach the foot of the stairs, and spits words at him. “I am sick of your sorries, no more of that shit. This started with you apologizing and it’s going to end that way.”

She grabs her coat and bag as the word _end_ thunders in his ears. “Please tell me what I can say to—to make you reconsider, Amy, please.”

“There’s nothing you can say.” Her voice is hard, but she moves quickly for a stone, pausing only to shake her head at him. “You lied to me for a year, _over_ a year, and now you’re standing here asking me to trust you again.”

“But I love you,” he says, with a wet face and a strained voice, and no effort in his composure, as she’s walking out the door. Every nerve in his body is screaming all at once, screaming at her not to go, screaming at him to figure something out, releasing directionless, antagonizing cries.     

“My point exactly,” Amy says. He strangles out a sob and she shakes her head again; her eyes have dried. “Don’t follow me. And don’t call.” She shuts the door behind her.

* * *

“Please, Sophie,” he begs. She doesn’t look to be particularly angry with him—maybe she’s even a tad sympathetic—but Amy’s roommate keeps their door open only wide enough enough to talk to him.

“It’s Christmas Eve, Jamie. Go home, see your brothers.”

“They said I should come here.” Well, what they’d said was ‘give it a few days and get in touch,’ and it was actually Rose who had said this—Chris didn’t speak and David spent a large portion of the conversation berating Jamie for crying, which only proceeded to make him cry harder, and then David and Rose had fought. The night was a series of catastrophes. “I just want to talk to her.” No one had questioned him when he’d announced he was ‘going out’ after dinner. The subway had been quiet.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you,” Sophie says gently.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye, Soph.”

She hesitates, and glances over her shoulder into the apartment. “Hold on.”

Sophie disappears behind the closing door, and Jamie’s nerves rush him as he waits. He balls his fists, paces a few steps, rubs his eyes. The door opens and Sophie emerges, wearing her coat, and Craig follows her out, also bundled up.

“We’re going to find some hot cider or something. If anywhere’s open. Go on in.” She gives him a small, piteous smile.

Craig pats him on the shoulder. “Good luck. Seriously hope it works out.”

Jamie nods and slips into the apartment, shutting the door behind him. Amy is standing in the living room, glaring at him. She holds her wine glass like a shield. He’s still wearing his coat and the heat hits him hard, bunching at the bulky intersections of his clothes.

“Don’t make yourself comfortable,” she says. He stands frozen by the door. “Okay, go on.”

He frowns a little and searches the floor. “Go on?”

“With your goodbye,” she snaps. He closes his eyes briefly. “That’s why you’re here, that’s why I let you in.”

All the speeches he composed haphazardly on the trip over have left him. “I thought…” His mouth hangs open, void of articulate protest. He’s only got a whine, and she won’t want a whine. “After everything.”

Amy huffs, shakes her head. “Have you got anything coherent to say?”

“I thought maybe you’d have—not reconsidered,” he manages. The phrase he’s looking for is ‘cooled off,’ but it’ll only make her more upset if he says it. “But…but, I don’t know. I thought maybe we could talk about it. When it’s not so fresh.”

Sighing, she takes a seat on the sofa. Some of her anger dissipates, receded to resignation. “I haven’t reconsidered. I’m not going to.”

So it’s true. Amy Pond is gone forever. They are not _in a fight_ : they’re over. Even with her standing right there in front of him, he feels her absence like a well in his chest, echoing ineffectually. “Amy,” he mutters, and lets his head fall against the door at his back. The helplessness is heavy.

Amy purses her lips and looks away. “It’s not the lying thing. I mean, it was. But I really started thinking about it after that, you know? And I think—god, I can’t believe I’m going to say this. I don’t think it’s meant to be, Jamie.”

“But it’s been so long.” He’d promised himself he wouldn’t cry, and multiple times, but he feels tears grabbing at the tail of his sentence. “Years, Amy.”

“Right, exactly!” No, no. Why’s she agreeing? Why does she sound so certain? “There’s such a thing as too much history.” He can’t imagine certainty when he’s slipping back into life without her, a place he never thought he’d venture again. He’s deleted all the records. _Too much history_. He doesn’t remember how to do this. “I think the only reason we wanted it so bad is that we didn’t try that first time around, and now we have and it wasn’t—it wasn’t right.”

“It _was_ right,” he says, surging from the door, suddenly incensed. “It was right for me, and I wanted it, I _want_ it, because I love you! Say what you will about your feelings, but don’t attempt to tell me what I felt, because you’re wrong. You’re wrong about that, Pond.”

He breathes hard as the anger subsides, and Amy gazes at him, locked into mild surprise. A few moments of silence pass between them. She fingers the rim of her wine glass. “You’re really important. To me. As a person.” He laughs—he can’t help it, he’s finished—the universe has spit him out on the sidewalk. “Obviously I love you, and I… thank you for your service,” she says awkwardly, and he’s so angry—angry in that big, anonymous sense he feels occasionally in times of distress—he’s so angry he has to turn away. “Are you ever going to forgive me?”

“Inevitably,” he exhales. “I can’t turn it off, as they say.” She ducks her head. “If you ever change your mind—”

“No, don’t. Don’t do that.” She stands again, steps toward him. Closest they’ve been this whole conversation and she’s still ten feet away. “I was worried that you might do that, that you might insist on being alone, which you should never be. Don’t be alone. Don’t wait for me, please, Jamie.” He puts his head in his hands. “You’re really good, you were a really good boyfriend. Intimidatingly good,” she laughs.

“Not good enough.”

“No, Jamie,” she sighs. “I guess there’s nothing I can say to convince you that’s not what happened.”

“Not really.”

She sips her wine. “Maybe you should be the one getting the therapy.” He glares at her and, with a whistling inhale, she sets her glass down before bridging the gap between them to wrap him in a hug.

He hugs her so tight he thinks his lungs might give in. Or perhaps it’s the weight of the event coming to sit on his respiratory system.    

It goes on like that for a while, a bone-crushing embrace on both sides. Even when they’ve stopped hugging she doesn’t move away but hovers near him with her eyes half-lidded, and he slips a knuckle under her chin to pull their mouths together, so though they’ve added ten minutes to their history it’s not too much just then, not too much for her to kiss him. His thumbs trace circles on the tops of her arms. Like every one of their kisses, it is better than the last, and inferior to the next.  And then she pushes him away and it occurs to him that there might not be a next.

“No, I can’t, I can’t,” she’s saying, crying for the first time tonight. “I’m sorry. I figured it all out, okay.”

“Please.” That word gets him nowhere but he always falls back on it.

“I’m just trying to be reasonable, Jamie.” She tugs their arms apart. “Just let me do the reasonable thing. Once.”

“I need to go,” he says, and the urge has indeed come over him very suddenly—he gets this way, sometimes. He wants to run away. He ran away from Amy at the pool when they first met, but she’ll probably take it better this time around.

“Bye, Jamie.” She sounds pained, which might satisfy him, were he vindictive, but it only throws the broken thing between them into greater relief. Gently, she cradles his head between her hands and presses a brief kiss to his forehead. It’s almost too late by the time he remembers he ought to memorize the sensation of the gesture, for posterity.

“Would you,” he tries, as she moves away from him again. “Would you take it all back? Was it worth it? All that time.” For an optimist, he does an awful lot of trading in masochism. But he deserves it; after all, he’s the guy who lost Amy Pond.

“Shut up,” she says, unsmiling. “Of course it was.”

He manages to grin at her: one last manic grin, venturing into the unknown. “Goodbye, Amelia.” And, with hurried steps, he does his best to leave her behind.

* * *

His best is not good enough. Not after a kiss like that.

At six o’clock on Christmas morning, Jamie and David sit on the stoop with half the luggage, waiting for Chris and Rose to come down with the rest. “It doesn’t mean anything,” David informs him. His breath is white on the air. “A kiss is a kiss. She doesn’t stop being attracted to you because you’re broken up.”

“It was—it was a very important kiss,” Jamie insists.

David shakes his head. “Just get over her. Go find some girl who’s alone on Christmas.” Chris emerges from the building, dragging a pair of suitcases behind him, and Rose trails after with a carry-on slung over her shoulder. “Rebound, J. All right,” David announces, jogging to the street. “The car’s here.” He pulls some of the luggage into the sidewalk, and Chris turns to Jamie.

“I bet if you went up and packed a bag now, you could catch a flight in time for Christmas dinner at Aunt Sarah’s.” Jamie shakes his head, hands fisting in the pockets of his jacket. It might as well not be Christmas, there’s nothing to celebrate.

“Whatever you do,” David calls. “Stop wallowing in your own self-pity.” Jamie tosses him a glare, and Chris goes to help their other brother.

He feels a hand on his arm and Rose is there, with pursed lips. “Listen,” she says, her voice lowered conspiratorially. “I know David probably told you it was nothing.” Jamie sense a ‘but’ is coming and his heart leaps. “But I’m not sure. He’s a little too rational about this stuff, sometimes. I think…” She sighs. “One more shot. And make sure she’s got a choice, okay?” He nods, gulping. Rose gives him a smile and a kiss on the cheek and climbs into the car. Jamie exchanges hugs with his brothers, and waves as the car pulls away.

* * *

He spends most of Christmas Day walking around the Village, though no stranger gives him anything more than a glance when he wishes them a Merry Christmas in his brightest voice.

There are some carolers in Washington Square Park and he sits for a bit and listens with his eyes closed, and when they’ve gone he composes a text. The last thing in their conversation is his series of unanswered pleads from the day after the party, and he deletes them until all he sees is the last thing she sent: a grocery list, and a reminder not to bring home any strays, which makes him laugh now like it did then. He takes an unsteady breath and writes:

_I will be at JFK on the 29 th. Ticket is in your name so you should be able to pick it up. Flight #3087. Your choice._

It takes him another minute to send it, deciding not to worry whether she’s blocked his number, or whether she’ll see there’s a text and won’t read it. It doesn’t matter until the twenty-ninth, and what’s the use in four days of worrying?

But they are the longest four days of his life.

* * *

The flight leaves at eight o’clock in the evening, a red-eye. He—they, perhaps—will be in Paris by nine the next morning, and trying to spend the whole day awake, as has always been his custom for red-eyes. It makes for manic fun and good memories, he’s found. He has Amy’s list folded in his wallet, beside her article, which has started to grey around the edges.

Jamie arrives at three AM, two hours earlier than the airline’s recommendation, having decided that he must see Amy get there and there’s no way to know when she’ll come, but also because he’d lain in bed since seven o’clock without getting so much as a quick snooze. He feels sort of hyper-aware, like all his nerve endings are on high alert, and he’s surrounded by the three-in-the-morning crowd at JFK, which is more depressing than calming. There’s no line for security. He asks the woman who waves him through the scanner if she had a good Christmas, assuming she celebrates Christmas, and then he apologizes blithely for assuming she celebrates Christmas, all of which she greets with a demure expression.

At the gate he settles in with a copy of _The Colour of Magic_ but does very little reading—mostly he watches the people dribbling in and out of the terminal, their rolling luggage pulled behind them like anvils, everyone traveling alone. It’s funny because sometimes he thinks of airports as romantic places, thinks of the line from that movie of which he’s only seen the beginning, about the arrivals area at Heathrow. Places where we find each other again. But now that he’s here at this time of day he can see the grey underbelly of it all; an airport is a human trafficking hub, and the people who come here are in limbo. They are not at their home and they’re not at their destination and they’re just being ferried through, past the Starbucks and the Hudson News, to the next sleepy pause along their journey. Airports are glorified canals, and the fluorescents hurt his eyes. The other passengers begin to arrive.

He searches every face trudging through the mouth of the terminal, every person coming to slump in one of the hard plastic chairs while the plane preps for boarding. He watches for the flash of long red hair, or the sight of her tall frame beneath the sign reading _Welcome to John F. Kennedy International Airport_. Watching is a more active pursuit than waiting, he’s not waiting, far from it. Waiting is—waiting is helpless. He’s not waiting. He’s watching.

And watching.

And watching.

“We will begin pre-boarding in five minutes,” chimes the PA system.

He swallows and fishes through his bag for his ticket. As he suspected, they are boarding exactly on time, which _never_ happens. And Amy knows it never happens, they’ve talked about that. He scurries over to the gate counter, where the lady who made the announcement is typing into an ancient computer.

“Hello,” he says. He tries to sound cheery as opposed to nervous.

“Good morning, sir.”

He slides his ticket across the counter and she accepts it. “I was wondering if you might be able to bump me to a later flight, Lucy,” he says, reading her nametag.

Unmoved by the gesture, she assess his boarding pass. “First class?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“You won’t get a refund.”

“It’s fine.” It’s a struggle to keep grinning. “And if you can get two tickets, that’d be great.” She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t protest.

“The next flight to De Gaulle is at noon.” Lucy clacks her keyboard a couple of times. “Just sold the last seat.” Jamie winces. “The next flight with two seats available leaves—ten AM tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” he gasps.

“Yes, sir. Holiday traveling, very busy.” Another series of clacks. “Your best option is to get on this flight and hope that the other member of your party can meet you in Paris over the next couple days.”

He groans rather loudly, feeling another tearful fit coming on—it’s been a difficult week. “That’s—that’s not going to…”

Lucy stares at him. A few passengers gathered by the gate for pre-boarding stare at him. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Thank you,” he manages, and returns to his seat in a fog. He doesn’t get up when they call first class to board, but stays watching the entrance to the terminal. There are more people coming in now, it’s closer to business hours, but there’s still no sign of her among the crowd. He prays and prays to no one in particular, his head swimming with that same futile _please_ , and he grips the armrests so hard his arms begin to ache.

She does not come.

“Last call for boarding,” says Lucy over the PA. “That means you, Passenger McCrimmon.” He glances over at her, still dazed, and somehow the gate has emptied around him, and it’s just he and Lucy, whose expression has softened.

He has only one thought, which is that New York is the last place he wants to be right now. He needs to get lost somewhere. He needs to not speak the language, for a while.

So, smiling weakly, he hands Lucy his boarding pass. 

* * *

“ _Monsieur, l’avion est descendu!”_

This is a child’s shouting, Jamie realizes, and it startles him from slumber because the plane has gone down, as in crashed to earth, and they are all dying, or caught in some _Lost_ -like scenario, and his last panicked thought is just, what about Amy?

That is, his last thought before he realizes, looking up at the straw-haired toddler, that the plane has only landed. A woman, his mother, pulls him away from Jamie’s seat, muttering _pardon_.

He sits up, rubbing his eyes, and sure enough the passengers have begun to file out. The little boy gives Jamie one last look before he and his mother shuffle away.

Numbly, he gets off the plane and sleepwalks through customs and gets his luggage and stumbles around baggage claim until he finds a driver with a sign that says his name. Relieved to find someone who is a little less a stranger, he gives the man an impromptu hug, and to his extreme comfort the driver hugs back.

It is raining in Paris, outside the window of the town car—a cold rain too, otherwise it’d lend something to the atmosphere. He lived here for a year as a child, and he finds it unchanged, even from his half-formed memories. Chatting with the driver, whose name is René, he discovers his French is not as bad as he’d thought.  

He dumps all his things in the hotel suite, and falls back on the bed. It is maybe too comfortable; maybe that’s what makes him feel after a moment as though he can’t be here. And it’s not just the red-eye remedy—it’s the same creature that chased him on to the plane, a dark-eyed monster stirring in his abdomen. Feeling the frown on his face deepen, Jamie sits up and pulls out his wallet to find the list.

Going to the places they would’ve gone strikes him as grotesque, a funeral, and he doesn’t like that one bit. Amy is alive and well and she’d love to be here, just not with him. Of course, he doesn’t like _that_ one bit either, and he needs something to do, and half of Paris is on her list! Should he roll the dice there’s half a chance he’d end up at one of her spots anyway. Besides, he’s not memorializing Amy: he’s memorializing him and Amy. Patches and Pond. Their newly minted togetherness, in the ground too young. Sighing, he reviews the agenda.

“Well,” she’d said, that night on the couch before they fought. “The first thing’s kind of obvious.”

 

1\. _La Tour Eiffel_

 

It is not so great in the rain. He huddles under a borrowed hotel umbrella. There aren’t many people around, or at least less than usual, but it is quite freezing and quite wet and he’s pleased to find that the next destination on the list is

 

2\. _L’Avenue des Champs-Élysées_

because he finds a café and gets a cuppa and a sandwich and feels warm for the first time in days. He spends a little while puzzling over the metro map to save himself some trouble.

The rain doesn’t do much for the smell of two-dozen Parisians and tourists jammed into a train car, and he’s glad it’s only a stop and a transfer and a couple stops after. He pauses at the transfer station to wonder why he doesn’t visit les Invalides while he’s at it, because what does Amy have against cannons and dead generals, anyway? But it’s moot, since he’s looking forward to the next destination.

 

3\. _La Musée d’Orsay_

 

It seems as though every person in Paris has chosen today to visit the Musée d’Orsay. He waits in line for nearly half an hour to get his ticket. A pretty young woman who stands behind him tries to make conversation, and he thinks she might be flirting, but it turns out he was right the first time about his French.  

Jamie wanders, mostly. Doesn’t look at the guide for a second. Doesn’t really believe in guides.

It is a marvelous museum, with the ceiling like a tent of glass, so he can see the rain pummeling down. He surrenders to the current of visitors, finds himself popping by Monet and Seurat and Cézanne. The paintings shout their hopefulness in colors, and it doesn’t lift his spirits because inevitably there is sadness in art, but it reminds him he has a spirit in need of lifting, which he has forgotten more and more often over the past year.

He even smiles at Van Gogh, who is maybe the saddest of them all, but also the most ecstatic. It’s the church painting—maybe if churches looked like this, he’d become religious. He has nearly come to terms with trying to make life imitate art when he sees a curtain of red hair out the corner of his eye.

His heart sinks as soon as it soars. This is the third time today he has mistaken some red head of hair for _the_ red head of hair. Sighing, he turns to move to the next salle.

And there, planted directly in his path, is Amy.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” she demands.

Amy Pond. In front of him. In the Musée d’Orsay. In Paris. In France.

“I called you about ten times,” she says, sounding annoyed.

Slowly, keeping his eyes on her, like if he blinks he might stop hallucinating, Jamie reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out his phone. The screen is black.

“I never turned it on when I got off the plane,” he whispers.

Amy exhales noisily, and he notices that she’s out of breath, and her hair, the most glorious hair he’s ever seen and truthfully more glorious now than ever, clings to her cheeks in damp tendrils. “That explains a lot.” She looks stunning. He is stunned.

A long silence passes between them as Amy recovers from what must’ve been a sprint—a sprint around Paris, to, what—how did— “What are you doing here?” he asks, though he can barely get the words out.

She gapes at him, and mutters, “Shit.” He has a sort of inkling of what’s going on, but it’s so momentous he doesn’t want to hope too hard and get shot down again. But what else? Why else could she be _here_ , of all places in the world to be? She glances around, at the legendary art. “Shit. I had a whole—I had a whole thing planned.”

“Amy,” he pleads. That’s all it is, a plea. The suspense kills him and brings him back to life in a second.

“Paris,” she says suddenly, loud enough to make him jump. “I’ve never been to Paris. You know why I wanted to go?” Amy laughs to herself. “The Madeleine books. I was obsessed with them. I used to memorize maps of Paris, I used to fantasize just—constantly.” Jamie’s hands have started to shake. The murmur of the crowds moving around them underscores their conversation. “I’m thirty years old, Jamie. I’ve had plenty of chances to go to Paris, and I never did.”

“Are you enjoying it?” His voice is so high-pitched he sounds like he’s swallowed helium. _You polite bastard_ , he thinks, and she smiles in reply.

Amy takes his hand, her skin clammy against his, and he instantly wants to warm her up. “I think. I _think_ I spent so long dreaming about Paris that I felt like if I went and every moment wasn’t the greatest moment of my life, I was going to have wasted all that time and effort and passion for it, you know? I felt like I needed to—I needed to do everything on the list.” He doesn’t understand, not really, or maybe he understands perfectly and that’s why all he can do is stare at their hands. “And now I’m here. I made it, finally. ” She’s grinning at him and he feels his head shake. “And it’s cold and wet and I don’t care at all. I’m here!” The look on her face is pure joy; maybe he will never need to see another painting. “Fuck reasonable,” she declares.

“It’s a very beautiful city.” God, he’s so stupid, why can’t he just say something—appropriate, for once.

She groans and grabs him by the lapels, and they’re drawing stares now, but he doesn’t care. “You are so thick,” she tells him. Her mouth is the same color as her hair. “You are Paris, Jamie. You’re Paris, except I never have to leave.”

“I thought you were gone,” he breathes, just before she drags him into a kiss. It’s everything their kiss by the pool in Massachusetts wasn’t, he feels as though there ought to be fireworks, or a symphony, or that the world could end and he wouldn’t care, for all his contentment in that instant. He lifts her a little by the waist and spins her around, and it’s her laughter that breaks them apart. People are definitely staring.

“Jamie, Jamie, Jamie.” She has her hands on his face.

“How did you even find me?”

“You think I don’t have that list memorized?” She squeezes his arm excitedly. “Speaking of, give it to me. I have to do something.”

“Your wish, Pond.” He retrieves the paper from his pocket. She takes a look at her long-forged plan and, with a dramatic flourish and excessive enjoyment, tears it to shreds.

“Amy,” he squeaks, astonished, but she only laughs.

“Now, let’s go see Paris.”

Jamie’s hand finds hers yet again, and they share a grin wider than the Seine. “Where do you want to start?”


	21. Prelude, Progression, Pictorial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So remember when I said this would be the last bit of the fic? That’s not totally true. But it is the last installment I will add as a chapter to this story: I am planning a smutty oneshot, and if I have an idea for more I’m not going to hesitate to write it, but those will be posted as separate stories. If you’re interested, I recommend adding me to your author alerts! Same goes for my next multichapter Amy/Eleven fic, which I hope to start in the fall. Additionally, since a few people have expressed interest in this, you’re welcome to write fics of your own in this universe, provided you come talk to me (via my inbox) about it first. There’s a lot this epilogue doesn’t cover and I don’t mind people filling in the blanks!
> 
> And one last tremendous thank you for sticking with the longest solo story I’ve written to date.
> 
> Some serious time skips in this chapter, so prepare yourself.

**1: Prelude**

“Are you doing it?”

“Yes, Jamie.”

“Is it going okay?”

“Well, I peed on the stick, so yeah, I think it’s going fine.” Something thumps the other side of the bathroom door, probably Jamie’s head. She slips the test back into the packaging, flushes, washes her hands. In the mirror she looks pale.

When she reenters the bedroom, Jamie is lying flat on the bed, and she smiles, raising the box. “ _Deux minutes._ ” After a year in Paris she can at least read the instructions on a pregnancy test, though when her work as a foreign correspondent requires translating, she often ends up asking Jamie’s assistance.

She falls on the bed beside him and his arm loops instinctively around her shoulders. “Isn’t it so funny,” he observes, sounding far-off. “That so much can happen in two minutes. And the universe is still expanding from an explosion that happened nearly fourteen billion years ago.”

Amy groans into his chest. “Are you going to be this obtuse the whole time I’m pregnant?”

“No,” he mutters. His eyes keep flickering across the ceiling. Nerves.

“You know, whatever happens, it’s good, right?” She pats his stomach and he flinches, withdrawn from his worrying. “If I am, then it only took us a month, and if I’m not, then we can do this when we’re back in the States, and we won’t have to move home while I’m pregnant.” It was hell getting everything to Paris without an unborn child; in a couple of months, when Jamie’s fellowship at the university ends, they’ll have to go back to New York, regardless of whether or not she’s in any state for it.  

He pouts at her. “I really want it.”

Funny that he thinks he has to say this. She’d first broached the subject a couple of months before, on a visit to New York for the holidays. They had dinner with Sophie and Craig and the one-month old Alfie, and the look on Jamie’s face with a baby in his arms was unreal. He’s a cheerful person, she knows, he never relishes sadness, but the joy that day had stood out—maybe because it was a little sad, too. He’s been waiting a long time for this, longer than he waited to fall in love. And that night when they got home, it occurred to Amy he’d also been waiting for her to raise the topic: she said the word  _kids_  and he sighed like he’d been holding his breath for two years. “I know you want it,” she says, brushing the hair from his forehead. “This is our first—” Scare isn’t the word. “It’s the first sign we’ve got that anything might’ve happened, and you know it could take longer.”

“I know,” he says, in a bit of a whine.

She has to bite back a laugh. “Well.” And here is her unabashed attempt to lighten the mood. “I think I’ll be pretty happy either way. Either I get a baby, or I get to keep having tons of great, unprotected sex with my boyfriend. Actually,” She pokes his cheek, where a grin has appeared. “That better not stop once I’m knocked up.” Jamie has half her sex drive at best, but the month they’ve spent trying has been a marked improvement.

He presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Never.” She knows this is a lie, at least to some degree, but it’s a nice thought.

The two minutes are up. She’d held Alfie too, she remembers. At Jamie’s insistence, of course—he wants her to want it as much as him, a daunting prospect considering she’d barely thought about children until a year ago. But the little boy’s solid weight felt warm in her arms, and his head smelled amazing, for whatever reason. She’d had to tell Jamie to stop staring at them; he was a little obvious about the whole thing.  

“Are you ready to look at it?” she offers quietly.

“Yes.”

They sit up together, Amy holding the box between them. She starts to drag the stick out. “Hey, one more thing. Just a little, tiny thing.” His eyes widen, the pause further unnerving him. “I love you,” she says, and he exhales sharply, trying to laugh.

“I love you too.”

She giggles at him, and removes the test.

After a beat, Jamie declares, “I don’t think we waited long enough.”

“It’s been two minutes,” she says gently.

But they sit there for another quarter of an hour anyway. Eventually Amy gets up and changes into her nightgown, while he continues to stare at the negative test. She climbs into her side of the bed, and pokes him with a foot beneath the covers.

“Jamie.”

In a sudden rush, he launches himself from the bed and into the bathroom, slamming the door. Amy shuts her eyes. Ironic that they want a baby when she’s already got one child to contend with.

He emerges a few minutes later in his pajamas and, looking a little sheepish, joins her in bed. She sets her book aside and gives him the kind of stare demanding an explanation.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, fiddling with the bedspread.

Her annoyance softens at the apology, and god, she’s a sucker for him. “Just, you know. You could try to have a little patience. My womb is not a dartboard.”

Jamie replies, very seriously, “What if my darts aren’t sharp enough?” Amy snorts.

“Okay, this is a weird metaphor and we’re going to stop it.” He manages a little laugh. “The equipment,” she says pointedly, “is fine. It takes people years to get pregnant.” All of which he knows, all of which they both know, all of which she shouldn’t have to be saying but she does anyway because Jamie, for all his playing at carefree, is the most neurotic person she’s ever met.

“You know, there are things we can do to increase our chances.” Yes, she gathered this from the literature that’s been piling up on their coffee table over the past few weeks. She hasn’t read any of the pamphlets, but their titles hint at exactly how much more there is to getting pregnant than swearing off contraception.

And she doesn’t care. “I don’t want a chart baby, Jamie.” She’s seen too many sitcoms make jokes about ovulation and optimal positions. He frowns at her. “I just mean, I don’t want our sex life to become the fertilization hour. I don’t want to call you at work so we can both run back here and knock one out while my eggs are all receptive. I feel like if we go to that place, we’re never coming back.” She’ll be sad when his interest returns to its natural, gentle place, and she’s got a feeling that giving every fuck a definitive purpose will only worsen her detox when the goal is met.

He shifts toward her, brow furrowed. “That is not going to happen, Amelia.”

“Really? Because you’ve got the worst case of baby-daddy syndrome I’ve ever seen.” Jamie’s head plunks to her shoulder and he groans.

“I’ll be normal!”

“You’re already not normal.”

“I’ll be  _my_ version of normal.”

“You’ve already started doing it.” He looks up at her, surprised. “Yeah, don’t think I haven’t noticed the lothario behavior, okay?” Jamie blushes. They’re up to five or six nights a week, not counting multiple goes. It’d be a dream come true if his intentions weren’t so transparent. “Or did you think that ‘James McCrimmon, sex fiend’ was a plausible cover?”

He settles back against the headboard, frown deepening. “You know I like sleeping with you.”

“Yes, I know you  _like_  sleeping with me.” Never mind the fact that she  _loves_  sleeping with him. He doesn’t seem to pick up on this nuance. “I’m just saying that it’s a slippery slope and I want to put off obligatory, scheduled, dollar-in-the-jar middle-aged sex for as long as possible, okay? And the planning and the worrying about chances of conception, that’s where it all starts, so.” This expulsion leaves her a little breathless. Fuck, she’s going to be so old soon. Forty is only seven years out.

Jamie contemplates this for a long moment, and leans in for a kiss. “I have an idea,” he says against her lips, and then withdraws to start sifting through the drawer of his nightstand. She feels vaguely concerned that he’ll return with something terrible. Like a Bible, or a dildo.

“Here,” he says, and he’s holding up a condom.

Astonishment wipes the grin from her face. “I thought we—” But Jamie cuts her off with another kiss, harder this time, and Amy goes hot all over. “You are full of surprises,” she manages, laughing, as he slides his hands beneath her nightie.

 

**2: Progression**

“But this is his  _son_. Who is biologically related to him. And unless you want to let a four-year-old in there alone with his unconscious father—”

“He’ll be done with the post-op and awake very soon, ma’am,” says the nurse, who has been blocking Amy from getting into Jamie’s hospital room for over half an hour now. “Once he’s awake he can approve visitors.” Yeah, he’s going to approve something, all right.

“And how long from now is very soon?”

“Very shortly.”

Amy lets out a very, very dramatic groan. Nat tugs on her hand.

“I’m hungry.” Shit. She’d been on her way to pick up lunch when she heard.

“River,” she calls. River glances up from her seat in the waiting area, and Amy waves her over. “Would you mind taking Nat to get something from the vending machine?” Having a second pair of hands has been a godsend for the past few hours, even if it had to be her boyfriend’s ex-wife.

“Of course, dear.” River extends a hand to Nat, who watches her carefully for second before taking it.

Amy kisses the little boy’s cheek. “I’ll see you in a few minutes, okay?”

Nat nods. “I want some chips,” he informs River. “Bye, Mommy.”

“Bye, baby.” The sight of Nat bouncing away (one of his shoes is untied, damn) sends a little pang to her chest. She turns back to the nurse and is about to start in about how ridiculous this situation is—not being able to see the father of her child in the hospital, what a fucking joke—when the woman perks up.

“Mr. McCrimmon is awake now, ma’am, and has agreed to allow visitors.”

Amy gapes at her. “Are you kidding me right now?” She’s just promised Nat she’ll see him soon. Well; at least she gets to chew Jamie out in private.

The nurse apparently doesn’t understand Amy’s frustration, and offers her a clipboard. “Just fill this out and you can go back to see him.”

“Yeah, okay,” Amy snaps, and rips the cap off the pen. 

She scribbles in her information and a couple of minutes later she’s standing in the doorway to a tiny hospital room, where Jamie sits upright in bed and does a bad job of eating blue jello with his right hand. A thick white cast covers his left forearm.

“Amy,” he says cheerfully.

“Who the fuck gets hit by a bike?”

“It was a very fast bike!” Amy closes the space between them with a forward march. “It’s only a fractured ulna and a small-to-moderate concussion—” The hug she gives him drowns out the rest of this sentence, as he tries to reciprocate with only one functioning arm.

“You will never cross the street again,” she says into his shoulder. He smells of hospital, a terrible piney stench. She hasn’t cried through this whole ordeal—three hours going on three years, it feels—but she can sense her eyes welling now. 

“I can try,” he laughs, his chest shaking slightly. “Where’s Nat?”

“With River.” Amy pulls away to find him looking slightly horrified, which is about right. “ _Someone_ ’s emergency contact info is six years out of date, so guess who they called when your unconscious body was hauled off in an ambulance?”

“I did not,” he says, somehow addressing himself with indignation. “I changed it. That is  _not_  possible.”

She gives his arm a little squeeze—the one not bound in plaster. Blood has pooled into purple bruises beneath the skin of his neck, and her fingers ghost across the half-bloomed marks. A  _bike_. “Thankfully your ex-wife isn’t a terrible person and decided to let me know.”

“Thankfully,” he says, kissing her.

Amy steps back into the waiting area to get their son, who’s perkier after a snack. She considers inviting River back to the room, but the other woman’s heels click away the moment Amy takes Nat’s hand.  

She has to remind Nat not to climbing all over his father like usual, though Jamie smiles through the obvious pain of having a 35-pound child stand on his lap. After the boy lands a couple of kicks to Jamie’s stomach, Amy drags him away and they declare a “nice touching only policy,” until Daddy is feeling better.

Only a week later does she realize the significance of Jamie’s accident, and why it’s left her jumping at shadows. Nat’s down for the night and they’re sitting in the living room, reading.

She shuts her novel, and inhales deeply. “I think we should get married.”

Jamie gapes at her over a stack of exams. “You what?”

Amy bites her lips. There’s a nonchalant approach to this, and a more honest explanation. “They wouldn’t let me in to see you at the hospital.” A small realization crosses Jamie’s face. At least she won’t have to be too blunt. “If something happens, I need to be able to get to you.”

It’s a bit of an awkward stretch for him to reach for her hand—they’re sitting on opposite ends of the couch, with their knees mingled between them—but he manages it. “Nothing is going to happen.” This is clearly meant to be his grown-up voice, but she smiles.

“Something could happen, Jamie.”

“It won’t.” Now he just sounds ridiculous.

“I understand you might not want to because of the whole—like, the past—”

“I thought  _you_  didn’t want to because of your past,” he says, looking at her curiously. This is news; she’d never said as much to Jamie, but then again, Jamie had never said as much to her. They agreed they wouldn’t marry, she’s sure of it, but she can’t recall when or how and has only a vague recollection of why.

“My past.” Rory hadn’t exactly left her in any rush to get hitched, it’s true. “I don’t know. We’re basically—I mean, we should at least get a domestic partnership, or a civil union. Something.”

“Something,” he echoes, and tilts his head back contemplatively. She’s fairly confident their not-being-married won’t cause Nat stigma at school, what with the divorce rate nowadays, and she spent more time dreaming of world travel than weddings as a girl. “I never really had a proper wedding the first time. No party. If we got married we could have a big party,” Jamie suggests. His enthusiasm comes out of nowhere. “You could wear one of those giant fluffy dresses. Nat could be my best man.” Amy’s dissolved into laughter. “I could get to smear cake all— _all_ over you.”

“It sounds fun,” she admits. A wedding without the fear of an unknown married life must be the best kind of wedding there is, but she can’t help feeling a smidge cautious about Jamie’s interest. “Are you sure? It’s just an idea, really. It can wait. It’s waited six years. I just think, you know. For the future.”

“The future.” He deflates. “Yes. Well. I guess I’ll think about it.”

“Okay,” she says, with a big smile and a pat to his knee.

Jamie is scheduled to get his cast off a couple of months later, and they plan a Saturday to themselves that weekend, which starts with her taking Nat to Stamford for a playdate and sleepover with Alfie. Jamie’s useless arm means she’s been consistently on top for weeks now, and she’s more than ready to break the streak.

But he’s not interested in lazy afternoon sex, she discovers; he wants to go to the Met. “I haven’t been in ages,” he tells her, and she has to oblige, since he’s the one who managed to get hit by a stupid bike, or whatever. And they don’t get to do much adult stuff out in the world, since Nat’s interests come first. Lot of  _Disney on Ice_.

So it’s not that bad, to wander hand-in-hand, sometimes arm-in-arm, through a museum. They giggle at the tourists and feel younger than they have in a long time. Jamie keeps sneaking touches to her hair with his newly unshackled appendage, enjoying the freedom.

“I wonder if that helmet thing from last time is still here,” she says, as they move into a new gallery.

“What helmet thing?”

Amy tosses him a look. “Don’t you remember? It had some weird spikes coming out the top.” He shrugs, and her eyes narrow. “I asked if it was art, and you said, ‘Maybe if  _I_  wore it.’”

“I did not—I meant the general ‘you,’ Pond.” He’s cute when he’s pretending not to adore her. “As in, as  _in_ , is a play still a play if it’s unperformed? Can a helmet really be art if it’s just—sitting—” Probably due to her giggles, he gives up the fight, and points over her shoulder. “It’s right behind you, anyway.”

She turns and sure enough it’s there, unchanged, though it’s been—it’s been a long time. They stand looking at the display together, her arm wound snugly around his.

“You had such a crush on me,” she whispers. In those days she tried to keep at least a foot of space between them at all times, and now after however many years (she doesn’t know when to say they began) they share a bed and a bank account and the occasional Chinese takeout, and they’ve made the most beautiful baby boy, who each morning ruins her anew for everything else on the planet.

Jamie is smiling. “A little more than a crush.” She sighs, letting her head fall against him. “I have something for you,” he announces suddenly. “But we need to go to the Van Gogh collection.”

“What?” is all she can ask before he’s dragging her away, through the gallery-going throngs. The museum is huge and Jamie, as per usual, refuses to use a map, so she’s winded by the time they reach the Van Goghs. And puzzled, too—her birthday isn’t for another two months. Christmas is in a few weeks, but Jamie loves the sanctity of presents on Christmas morning. An anniversary she’s forgotten?

“Good,” Jamie is saying to himself. “This is good. This’ll do.”

“What’s going on?” she demands.

He faces her finally, shiny-eyed and beaming. “I wanted to answer your proposal.”

“My proposal?” Her proposal. The conversation they had about marriage stumbles to the front of her mind, but was it a proposal? More of a suggestion. A conversation. But she had left it up to him, and he’s fumbling in his pocket now, and yes, that does appear to be a ring box in his hand. She feels like she’s asleep. Like she  _must_  be asleep. It’s been fifteen years since the last time this happened.

“I’m going to do the knee thing now, or do you not want that?” he asks, as if inquiring how she takes her coffee.

“That would be okay.” She sounds like a robot. She’s forgotten how to intone.

He lowers himself to the ground and in an instant every eye in the gallery is on them. Amy is either pale or blushing hotly or somehow both; perhaps she’s developed spots. He pops open the box and there between velvet cheeks is a little red stone, a ruby, set in a simple, handsome gold band.

“Yes, Amy Pond, I will marry you,” he says, grinning. “If that’s all right.”

She nods perfunctorily. “It’s all right.”

As it turns out, more decisions go into planning a large wedding than Amy could ever have fathomed when she agreed to tie the knot. She knew about booking venues weeks in advance, about hiring a band, about picking a dress—but she’s never heard of half the food their caterer wants to serve and for some reason the color of the napkins is very important. Jamie, being the avid reader he is, brings home stacks and stacks of wedding magazines, and there are blogs devoted to  _theme_  weddings and  _chic_ weddings and  _rustic_ weddings and  _destination_ weddings. Why are there so many kinds of bouquets? What is a Bridal Luncheon? One afternoon several months after the engagement they’re sitting in the living room, surrounded by color swatches and pictures of cakes while Nat draws, and Amy screams into a throw pillow.

Jamie pats her. “It’s a lot, I know.”

“It is  _so_  much,” she moans.

“Mommy,” Nat squeals. “I drew you!” He shoves the picture toward her; it is a circle with a shock of orange hair and a big frowny face. Amy feels as though she has stepped into a dirty puddle of emotion, and overcome by everything, she bursts into tears.

“Oh, oh, oh,” Jamie mutters, attempting to drag Nat away from her. “That’s a very nice drawing, sir, let’s put it away now.”

“Why is Mommy crying?” Nat screams, and he starts to cry too, so Jamie tries to hug them both at the same time and starts singing the Itsy Bitsy spider, like that’s going to do something.

It’s a nightmarish moment, and a couple of days later she realizes what’s going on. With her. In her. Standing in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror, she thinks that maybe she shouldn’t tell Jamie, not right away—but the stress is like a dumbbell on her chest, she needs someone to take the weight off.

Amy finds him in the kitchen, starting their supper, humming.

“Where’s Nat?” she asks. Parenthood has lent her a sixth sense, a hyperattentiveness to the location of her child at every waking moment. She doesn’t need to be there, she just needs to know.

“In the den. I put on Nova,” he chirps. Her future husband makes their child watch Nova. She’d laugh if she didn’t want to crawl out of her own skin a bit.

“I’m pregnant.”

Jamie drops a zucchini and doesn’t move to pick it up. “What?” She shrugs. She isn’t sad or disappointed, she’s just—exhausted. The hormones have been killing her. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” she says. Jamie struggles to keep a straight face.

“Do you think—do you think you’d like to keep it?”

She sighs: the thought has occurred to her. It’s not that she doesn’t want another baby, a baby is an ocean-sized love, and she knows Jamie does. While a string of inconveniences has delayed their second attempt to get pregnant, kid #2 has always been in the picture. Nothing, however, is quite as inconvenient as a pregnant wedding. “I don’t know, Jamie.” She leans against the kitchen island, head swimming, and he puts a steadying hand to her elbow. “If I get an…” God, she can’t even say it. Abortions are for teenagers and prostitutes. They  _want_  a baby. They’ve wanted a baby. “It’s already a miracle that I’m pregnant at this age without trying. I think it might be now or never.”

He scratches his chin, runs a hand through his hair, torn between his desire for another child and his need to be the world’s most supportive partner. She knows what she’s going to do, she’s almost sure of it, but she sort of enjoys his dilemma. She likes not being the only one in turmoil. “Whatever you want,” he manages.

Amy gives him a little smile. “I’m going to keep it.” Jamie’s relief is so obvious it looks to have hit him like a wave. “ _But_  I want you to know that being pregnant and getting married are the two most stressful things ever and if anyone,  _anyone_  calls me a bridezilla or a crazy pregnant lady I reserve the right to stomp on their face.” Jamie has started hugging her, laughing.        

“I am one-hundred percent in support of any and all face-stomping, Amy Pond.”

The worst of it is the dress. She nearly cries again, trying to explain her situation to the woman at the shop. There’s no way to know if she’ll be showing by the wedding, since it’s three months out, so there’s no way to know if she needs a maternity gown or a regular gown or some half-breed creation, and the likelihood is that no matter what she ends up with it’ll need alterations days—hours?—before she walks down the aisle. She’s never been so thankful for Jamie’s money, because she can’t imagine having to work right now on top of everything. The pregnancy hits her like fever: she either can’t wake up or can’t sleep, the morning sickness persists, her bras feel like manacles. It’s exponentially worse than the first few weeks with Nat, and she can’t figure out if it’s the wedding or something else.  

“Just tell her,” Jamie insists, as they’re sitting in the OB-GYN exam room, awaiting the first ultrasound. “Just make sure everything’s okay.”

“I’m sure it’s just stress.” She traces the faint remainder of a stretch mark on her bare belly.

“Amy.” He squeezes her hand, concern carving lines in his brow. “Please. It’ll only take a second.”

“Are you worried about me or the baby?” she snaps, and Jamie’s jaw clenches. Damn, she’s sour. Casually accusing him of reducing her to an incubator. “Sorry,” she mutters.

“It’s fine, I don’t care as long as you say something.”

“Fine,” Amy grunts.

The door opens and in comes Dr. Winer, who is grey-haired and soft-voiced, greeting them sweetly. Dr. Winer squirts a bit of the jelly stuff on Amy’s stomach and starts circling with the grey wand, and the three of them watch the black-and-grey image on the monitor shivering erratically. Jamie still holds her hand.

“There’s a heartbeat,” says the doctor, and Jamie makes a little delighted noise. A living creature, inside of her. A strange expression crosses Dr. Winer’s face, and Amy feels the color drain from her cheeks.

“What is it?”

The doctor does a bit of searching with the wand, and smiles. “There are two heartbeats.”

“Two hearts?” Jamie repeats, anxious. “Is that—is that some kind of birth defect?”

“No,” says Amy, realizing.

Dr. Winer shakes her head. “It’s twins.”

“ _Twins_?” says Jamie, though it’s more of a shout, and it’s right in Amy’s ear. She can’t even process the disruption, not right now. Twins. Two babies.

“Would you like to know if they’re fraternal or identical?”

Neither of them is in any state to answer this question, as Dr. Winer discerns after a moment.

“Well,” says the doctor gently. She tells them in a grandmotherly tone about the nuances of multiple babies, and how they ought to consider scheduling a cesarean in advance to reduce the risk of birthing complications. She offers them some pamphlets and recommends a book called  _The Parent’s Guide to Raising Twins_. Mostly Amy and Jamie just sit there, attempting to listen, not even attempting after a while. His hand is tight around hers. Two babies.

And then Dr. Winer asks if they have any other questions. Amy sucks in a breath.

“Does this… does this explain why I’ve been feeling so much worse than the first time?”

“Feeling worse how?”

“Tired.” Like now. “Nauseous.” Like now. “My boobs hurt a lot.” She gave up on her bra this morning.

Dr. Winer smiles sympathetically. “It’s normal. A little miserable, but normal. I’ll prescribe something for your stomach,” she says, pulling out pen and pad.

They leave the office and walk quietly to the subway, where he helps her sit and she rests her head on his shoulder. Oddly, her stomach feels fuller than it did an hour ago.

After a minute Jamie’s breath tickles her ear. “I think three is a good number.”

 

**3: Pictorial**

Amy’s suitcase sits packed in the foyer, he saw it there, but Jamie is putting off her departure; the minute he goes downstairs she’ll say her goodbyes and he’ll be thrown into two and a half weeks of single parenthood.

So he settled in the nursery twenty minutes ago with the babies, and they’re now on their second picturebook, about a raccoon, with plenty of finger puppets for him to voice. Some blocks distracted Rosie a while back, but Nora remains in his lap, trying to catch the wriggling puppets before he pulls his hand away.  

“Jamie.”

Amy stands in the door, looking exasperated. Nat wriggles by her into the room, coming to sit with Rosie and prodding the baby curiously.

“Hi,” Jamie manages. Nora gets hold of one of his fingers and bites down, hard. He yelps.

“I’ve got to go to the airport, my flight’s in two hours.”  Does the paper really have no one else available to go to DC? Someone without three kids and a husband, someone with two weeks to spare.

“Okay,” he says, trying to sound cheery. He presses a kiss to Nora’s fine brown curls; Rosie is the only one who got Amy’s ginger, but he doesn’t mind that much.

“Jamie,” she reproves, and he sighs, clamoring to his feet.

“Everyone say goodbye to Mommy.” And she gives each of the kids numerous kisses, Nat pretending to wipe the saliva from his cheek. She kisses Jamie, too, with Nora between them grabbing at her hair.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Amy announces, hands on his shoulders. “And I told Sophie to be ready in case you called needing help. And you know where all the emergency numbers are.”

“I wish you’d let me hire a nanny.” It’s not that they aren’t capable parents, or that their children aren’t angels, or that they work too much to do the raising themselves. In a house with two babies there are more sleepless nights than restful ones, more tears than smiles. The past year, since the twins were born, has been the most emotionally and physically exhausting time in his life since his mother passed and his first marriage ended within six months of each other. And now Amy is leaving him to do it alone.

“No nannies,” Amy insists. “We’ve got a sitter, you can call her too if you need something.” The first time they had this argument, she told him nannies were harmful to parent-child bonding, and when he responded that  _he_  had a nanny until he was ten, it only proved her point.

Jamie’s subsequent groan earns him another kiss. Amy strokes Nora’s head, sighing.

“Don’t forget to call me the second she talks.” Rosie’s first word had come a couple weeks earlier:  _geddy_ , meaning spaghetti. “Or if either of them walks. And there better be video. Phone ready at all times, McCrimmon,” she commands, a finger in his face.

He grins. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And don’t ma’am me.” Amy takes a last look at the room and the people in it. “Okay. Airport. I’ll call when I get in. Love you.”

“Love you too,” he manages. A final kiss and she’s gone.

_Everything’s going to be fine_. The power goes out on the fourth day. Massive outage; city wide, and the island too.

The dark apartment scares Nat and he cries while Jamie tries to get all the baby formula from the fridge and into a cooler packed with ice, praying that the weeping will not prove contagious as usual, but it does and suddenly he has three hysterical children on his hands. He gives them each a bit of ice cream—it’s all melting anyway—and it soothes the tension—until Nat’s sugar rush kicks in, that is. The girls are down for the night and he trips while sprinting around the living room, prompting another crying fit, waking Nora and Rosie anew.

It’s half an hour before Jamie can breathe, let alone sit, settling in the library across from the babies’ room because the monitor isn’t working. He offers to read to Nat, who has calmed down.

The little boy pouts, his whole face contorting. “I’ve read all the books.”

“Every single book in the world?” Jamie gasps.

“All the kid books.” Nat hops up, starting for the bookshelf, and Jamie follows behind. He can only ever really feel his age when he has to stand up in a hurry. “I want to read a grown-up book.” Nat pulls a thick volume from one of the lower shelves.

“Oh, that’s a photo album.” Jamie takes it gingerly from his son, who frowns.

“A picture book?”

“No, it’s got pictures of your mom and me.” He’d recognized it immediately, even in the dim light.

“Am I in them?” Ah, yes, the self-interest of youth. Jamie laughs.

“No, this is before you were born.” Nat tugs the album away and returns to the sofa, flipping the book open. Most of the pictures haven’t seen the light of day in five years, and some go back further. Jamie joins him, bringing one of the candles closer to improve their view.

Nat gestures to a photo. “What’s this?”

“That’s the Eiffel Tower, which is in a faraway place called France, where we used to live.” He taps his and Amy’s figures, dwarfed by the landmark. “There we are, see?”

“What’s an Eiffel Tower?” Nat asks, unimpressed.

“Ah, well, you see,” says Jamie, instantly a teacher. “A hundred years ago they used to have these big—basically science fairs, like the big kids have at school—called World’s Fairs, and they built this tower to celebrate that. People could go up on the tower and see the city. And you would walk underneath it to get in.”

“Why are you kissing in front of it?”

“Because that one is very famous.”

“Why?” his son demands, and his incredulity does make a bit of sense. A famous metal trellis; there’s something odd about it, even if it takes a five-year-old’s logic for him to realize.

He weighs his answer for a moment. “Because… it’s in a very special city that’s important to your mom and I and a lot of people. And when people see the tower, they think of this great city.”

“Not New York.” Nat’s spent his whole life in New York, at least as far back as he can remember. It’s the only city he knows, so far.

“Not New York. Paris.”

“Paris?”

“Paris. You’ll go there someday.” He musses the boy’s hair. The promise does not seem to interest Nat, but it interests Jamie—a family vacation. Visiting all their old haunts. The Musée d’Orsay.

The boy points out an older, very different picture. “You look different.”

“That’s because—” Oh, he really does look different. And Amy too. “That’s because we were twenty when that was taken. We were at a party, we were just getting to know each other.” He feels a twinge of belated embarrassment, looking at himself all pink-cheeked and clueless, with an arm draped affectionately around Amy’s shoulder.

“Twenty is old,” declares Nat, shaking his head.

“To you maybe.” Jamie lowers his voice. “You want to know how old I am now?”

“How old?”

“Thirty-eight. And a half.” Nat gurgles delightedly.

“Old!”

“Very old, indeed.”

Jamie’s still staring at the photograph, remembering what he can from that night. Hadn’t she kissed him, and he’d refused? Something like that. He wishes he had known, or that she had known, or that all their friends who now claim to have seen it all along might’ve said something. But he has an inkling, the tiniest of certainties, that they wouldn’t have listened. And they got a story out of the journey, anyway; we’re all just stories in the end. They’d made it a good one.

“I’m bored,” says the boy, and he shoves the album away, hopping off the sofa and back to the bookshelf. Jamie holds it in his lap. He really ought to frame some of these, they’re precious. “Daddy,” Nat says, waving his arms, needing attention. Jamie smiles and sets the book aside.

Amy’s return a couple of weeks later is a noisy production, all shouts and hugs and most of them from Jamie. He wraps her in his arms as if it’s been a million years since they last touched, and doesn’t let go for a full minute, prompting her to ask, “What’s the matter with you?”

Nothing’s the matter. This is usual, this is the plainest version of himself. “I missed you,” he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Welcome home.”


End file.
